What's eating up Lester.

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2006)

If someone would ask me to name a handful of the most important movies of the 90's, or of the cinema for the matter, 'American Beauty' would be on that list.
The movie basically is a transformation story of a man called Lester (Kevin Spacey), who wakes up in a revelation that he's been asleep during his life after seeing his daughters, Thora Birch, friend Angela (Mena Suvari) dancing during a recess of a basketball match. As it seems evident, that his daughter Jane and wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) both seem to think, that he's obsolete and useless, he begins to day dream of his Lolita crush and shape his future towards getting what he so desperately believes he is in need of. So he starts to puff some weed, that he buys from his new hero Ricky (Wes Bentley), and lift some weights to become the attraction he thinks Angela would be drawn to.
The movie is well written and directed. There is so much poetry in some of the scenes, that you could spend hours just to watch the things to flow by, while the soundtrack is bringing the most perfect moods for each scene laid before the viewers eyes.
I've seen the film may times and yet it still feels fresh each time I watch it. You can always pick up new meanings from the work of the actors and the things that are told. You can watch it and be seduced in this happy and sad tale of a man, who is just trying to figure out what he really needs.