A complex film with a multitude of themes

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2016)

American Beauty is not overrated. It seems as though every time a movie gets so much praise at the Oscars makes it automatically bad. That's pretty idiotic. I don't get the negative backlash. The themes and characters are still timeless,and still resonates with us. Also, the bullshit about pedophilia gets me wondering why any human being would believe such trolls. I guess you could interpret that however.
The movie is about Lester Burnham who is going through a mid-life crisis. He has a controlling wife who always nags at Lester, a rebellious angst driven teenage daughter, a horrible corrupt job, and he falls in love with his daughters friend. As you could probably tell, his life just goes downhill from here.
This is one compelling and engaging movie. From the opening scene you are instantly thrown into Lester's life, right down to the explosive finale at the end. I don't think people get how much depth there is in this movie, or maybe they forgot. The movie was highly acclaimed by critics and was nominated for a lot of awards, yet for some reason people started hating on it years after. The movie has a multitude of themes however, from lust, marriage, purpose, motivation, insecurities, being ordinary, and homosexuality. Those are heavy topics, but the film actually has some dark acid wit to it. It's not a particularly depressing film, the characters are very interesting as they go through their own problems.
The movie is a masterpiece, it has such a beautiful yet haunting score and the dream sequences were Lester fantasizes about his daughters friend gives symbolism and meaning behind his character. The plastic bag scene I have mixed feelings about, I could understand why they wanted to show it, gives meaning to one of the characters traits, but I thought the delivery was cheesy. The pace is suitably slow, I love the atmosphere of the film and how the film takes its time to flesh out the characters and themes. Sam Mendes does an excellent job at directing making each and every scene stand out.
The flaws I have are some questionable scenes. Like when Lester is eavesdropping on his daughter and her friend and they hear something outside, Lester thinks they hear him and loudly runs down stairs. First of all, how did they not hear Lester? They hear one tap on the window but not the loud running just outside their door? Also, like the bag scene there are a lot of heavy handed moments in the movie in terms of acting and throwing symbolism's and metaphor's.
Overall, the movie left an impact on me. Lester's mundane routine gets me worried if that stuff will happen to me in the future. Well, it probably will, since I already feel as though I have mid-life existential crisis's. Oh gosh. Anyways watch American Beauty, it holds up and its on Netflix.
Score: 9/10