Dead already.....

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 2000)

Lester Burnham hates his life. He hates his mediocre job and the corporate brown-nosing it involves, he hates the fact that his wife and daughter think he's a total loser, and he's none too impressed with the inevitability of middle age decline either. But rather than having a mid-life crisis, Lester instead opts for a much more positive approach - a sort of mid-life rebirth. To some extent, his newly rediscovered youthful vigour is triggered by the resurgent lust he feels for his daughter's teenage friend, Angela.

Suddenly it's time for radical life change; he quits his job - an occupation which apparently involves "jacking off to a fantasy life that doesn't quite so closely resemble hell", befriends the weird teenage loner next door, starts smoking copious amounts of extremely potent weed and begins a fitness programme that will make him "look good naked".
It's almost impossible to categorise this film, as it encapsulates so many themes and dramatic conventions. Kevin Spacey's narration immediately signifies that his character is deceased - so there's the who-done-it? element. It's extremely funny in parts, but in no way could it be described as a comedy. It's a romance of sorts, where love and relationships are at first satirised and dissected, but ultimately idealised. And to call it melodrama is oversimplifying matters, ignoring the depth of social commentary and indeed the whole promotion of a philosophical discussion on the meaning of life and perhaps more significantly, death.

Spacey has misfired in a couple of questionable roles recently, principally 'The Negotiator' and to a lesser extent 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil', but his Oscar winning turn as a latter day Willy Loman sees a successful return to the kind of form usually associated with 'The Usual Suspects' and 'Seven' star. Annette Bening is in career best mode as Carolyn, the most frighteningly neurotic female lead since Liz Taylor's Martha in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf', and the newcomers Wes Bentley as Ricky, Mena Suvari as Angela and perhaps the biggest revelation of all - Thora Birch as Jane - all hold there own in an excellent ensemble cast. In fact this movie succeeds in interweaving a series of slice-of-life plotlines to better effect than Paul Anderson's plodding 'Magnolia' or even the benchmark by which all multi-layered American dramas are judged, Altman's 'Shortcuts'. The reason this structure works so effectively is that it doesn't insult the audience's intelligence by employing scenarios that entirely rely on coincidence, alternatively using a more realistic narrative approach.
The movie has a feel of 'Peyton Place' gone awry, or a 'Blue Velvet' minus the Lynch-esque surrealism. It's a tribute to the faith invested in debutante Sam Mendes directorial skills that this thought provoking masterpiece was handled with such understated flair and sincerity. Mind you, he did have all the experience that years spent as a theatre director brings and award-winning Conrad Hall as his cinematographer, and along with Thomas Newman's poignant score, this combination dictates the whole atmosphere.

Any film which leaves the viewer pondering its ramifications for days after they've left the cinema, can only be regarded as essential viewing.