The height of pretention and superfluity

Rating: 1/10 (10 February 2002)

American Beauty is the example of what a movie should not be, and what turns off many people to films of ideas. It is pretentious to the point that one becomes embarrassed for the actors and writers for having created such superficial drivel. It reminds me of what someone would say in a junior high school poetry class. The ideological implications of the film blatant and offensive, portraying the neighbor as a reactionary conservative fanatic that is just attempting to cover up his homosexuality, and his wife as a braindead house wife, implying that for woman to do anything other than pursue a career she must be brainwashed. The only positive characters in the movie are the gay next door neighbors. Living a "normal" lifestyle and being a part of a traditional family are anathema in the movie as Kevin Spacey points out "there is nothing worse than being normal." This was the most over rated movie of the year and maybe the decade.