Moving, Powerful and Provoking

Rating: 9/10 (31 October 2002)

When I first saw this movie, I was disturbed. I thought it distasteful that they had made a movie centering around a man's lust of a girl his daughter's age. It was only about the fifth time that I saw this movie that I noticed that he said "The best years of my life was when I flipped burgers and got laid all the time" or something to that effect.
It was then that I noticed that Angela was representing those times he had loved so much. After I noticed this, the movie became not so disturbing, but mildly sweet. Kevin Spacey plays his character to perfection, as do Anette Benning, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley and Mena Suvari, which helps make the film all the more believable.
Now every time I see American Beauty, I find that it gets all the more haunting, engrossing and stimulating. It's a movie that can be talked about for hours, it can leave an imprint on your mind that affects the way you look at life, it can mean something different to each person, which means that it speaks to each person in a different way.
To all those who have not seen this movie, see it, but don't go into the movie expecting anything light-hearted. Because basically it isn't, but that makes this movie so much more worthwhile. It shows that to make a movie a success, you don't have to have light fluffy characters, who bounce around knowing that nothing will ever go wrong in their life, it shows us how the smallest of our actions can have drastic consequences, and to be careful what we wish for.
See this classic, American Beauty, and find your own message in it, find a love or hatred for the characters, and find a moving, powerful movie that will keep you glued to the screen and on the edge of your seat.