Supremely alienated dialog

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 2005)

"American Beauty" (1999): Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Allison Janney, Peter Gallagher, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley, Chris CooperÂ…an all-talented cast, great photography & lighting, interesting score, and supremely alienated dialog (along the line of "The Ice Storm"). "American Beauty" received the Academy Award for Best Film of 1999, about which I have no argument. Spacey does a great job of creating an average man who's slowly losing his tolerance for a life that gives nothing back (and received Best Actor for it), Benning is a self-tortured Type A real estate broker who can't find perfection in the world, their daughter (Birch) - wanders solo through the house, trying to connect with something and someone. Her best - only - girl friend (Suvari), is a loud-mouthed, acidic Prom Queen type, who talks the talk and appears to walk the walk. A young man moves in next door. He's silent, and seemingly videotapes everything and everyone (Cooper). It is often through his lens that we observe these lives. This is by no means a comedy, but there is a lot of BLACK humor for awhile, which slowly sheds the humor part... leaving the film to conclude in the only ways it could. This is one of my favorite American films of the last decade. "We" have done a great job of looking closely at our own culture, and finding some of what makes us "US". I would include "Blue Velvet" "The Ice Storm", "Exotica", "The Straight Story", and "The Sweet Hereafter" in this genre.