Brilliant . . . A Tragedy With A Happy Ending

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 1999)

American Beauty starts out slow. Normal family, normal neighborhood. And then it starts for real. The illusion of normality is blurred and fades like invisible ink. Kevin Spacey, one of my favorite actors, is a corporate nobody that cracks, quitting his number job and fantasizing about his daughter's best friend. His wife, played by Annette Benning, is a failing real estate broker whose business is as shakey as her marriage and her sense of security. The daughter, completely ignored by her parents, falls in love with a boy who has just moved in next door that deals drugs for money he uses to buy film equiptment so he can film "beautiful things" such as a dying animal. His father, an ex-Marine Colonel asks for a urine sample every six months. Nice happy family, isn't it?
Kevin Spacey does an amazing job narrating and playing the lead. What seems to be a horrible ending (at the beginning you find out that he will die soon) is transformed into something wonderful and truly beautiful . . . American Beauty.