A bizarrely optimistic film that finds beauty amongst ugliness.

Rating: 9/10 (15 February 2000)

By the time this film reached Britain the rave reviews it received in America had long since found there way over here- this is of course a mixed blessing; nothing ruins a great film like unrealistically high expectations. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to come away genuinely moved.
This was mainly due to the fact that the tone of the film was nothing like what I was expecting; reviews and trailers alike make the movie out as much more of a comedy than it actually is. While there are indeed some very funny moments, this is principally a poignant film. It suggests that all we really need to do to achieve the happiness we spend our lives searching for is realise that we are constantly surrounded by it, we just don't recognise it. When we are invited to see the most beautiful thing that the camcorder obsessed Ricky has ever taped, we expect anything other than the fluttering plastic bag which it turns out to be. It's an interesting point; anything, if viewed from the right perspectives, can be beautiful. On the way home from the film, every piece of flying garbage I passed seemed that much more pleasant.
Sam Mendes' direction is fantastic in its understated and discreet approach, which makes the apparently every day family's blatantly non-everyday activities all the easier to swallow. The score is perfectly balanced, at some times the stuff of fairy-tales, and at other times hauntingly moving; I am a great believer in the importance of a good score, and American Beauty is complemented well by the quiet and subtly affecting music which Thomas Newman has furnished it with. The plastic bag scene would only have been half as memorable without the sense of sadness that the music helped to instill in it.
The acting is first rate throughout; I don't think Kevin Spacey has ever put a foot wrong, so his fine performance is no surprise, but all the other actors in the film, particularly the younger cast members (who give courageous and utterly convincing portrayals of mixed up youth in an equally confused suburbia) are equally excellent.
The message of beauty amongst ugliness is the driving force of the film, and it's an interesting one. Whether or not you subscribe to the theory that a plastic bag flapping in the wind is the most beautiful thing you'll ever see is down to your own personal judgment. This film, however, with its strangely optimistic message that you can always find beauty and happiness if you stand back from your ingrained perspectives and look for it, should move even those who don't see the appeal of such projectile polythene.