Beauty of a Film

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2000)

The Nineties might have to be titled the "Dysfunctional Decade." Popular Culture has been inundated with stories about dysfunctional families. Television has its animated example of "The Simpsons" and before that was "Roseanne." Movies have done their share of deconstructing the security of the nuclear family as well. Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" portrayed a family in the Seventies that was in flux. "Happiness," Todd Solondz's look at the skeletons lurking underneath a seemingly normal family, took suburban hell to a disturbingly new level.
But "American Beauty" may go down as the definitive film on the subject. This is an almost perfect film, an impressive achievement for all involved. Especially first-time director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball, who was previously producer for the sitcom "Cybil."
Kevin Spacey plays Lester Burnham, a man who informs us that he will be dead in less than a year..."Of course I don't know that, yet." As far as his life is concerned, however, he's already dead. He's married to a shrewish wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), who is trying to usurp the current king of real estate (Peter Gallagher). Eventually she just beds him. Lester and Carolyn's marriage is falling apart, taking their teenage daughter Jane, played by Thora Birch, along with it.
Lester is about to be reborn, though, thanks to Jane's flirtatious provocative best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). Angela becomes Lester's angel, spurring him to workout, quit his meaningless job and regain his life. Changes are also in store for young Jane who becomes the object of attention for next-door neighbor Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). Ricky has a thing for video-taping subjects that interest him, even if it means shooting through the Burnhams' window. Ricky has his own problems dealing with his disciplinarian dad, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper). Everything comes to a head by the end of the picture when we found out how Lester dies and how the other characters are involved.
Alan Ball has crafted a thorough and surprising screenplay, well deserving of its Golden Globe. Ball is not afraid to flirt with copping a legend as Lester provides narration from beyond the grave a la "Sunset Boulevard," nor is he afraid to be edgy and subversive as Ricky, a self-acknowledged drug dealer, provides the theme of the film. Beneath everything lies beauty. We see this beauty in Lester's transformation, of course. Every character, however, is allowed a shred of vulnerable beauty. Bening brings a human despair to Carolyn, especially when we see she is just as unfulfilled as Lester. Suvari's slut brings forth an insecurity that is palpable and empathetic. No one is one-dimensional, which is an amazing achievement for a film that could have very easily slipped into surface satire.
The credit must go to the cast and director Sam Mendes, Golden Globe winner for best drector. Mendes has worked prior to the film with theatrical productions of "Cabaret" and "The Blue Room" with Nicole Kidman's acclaimed performance. Mendes' theater-upbringing is evident as he allows for the characters to be three-dimensional. Burnham's lusting after Angela could very well have been distasteful and crude. But Spacey imbues him with such awkwardness that it is not unlike a nerd's crush with Miss Popular. His immature behavior is a nice humorous touch, but eventually this deepens into something poignant and bittersweet. Lester Burnham may be as archetypal a film character of the millennium as Benjamin Braddock was for the 20th Century.
This also bodes well for directors as Mendes' arrival may herald forth a theater/film renaissance on par with Elia Kazan and Mike Nichols in the 1950s and '60s. In fact this is already holding true as Julie Taymor, who directed Broadway's "The Lion King," is making a film version of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. Not to say that this is filmed play. Mendes proves to be a visual poet with evocative use of fantasy sequences involving lots of rose petals, and the counterpoint of suburbia at its drabbest.
But look closer...for as "American Beauty" teaches us in its epiphanal finale, nothing is without beauty and grace if one is willing to look for it.
American Beauty ****