Just about a perfect film!

Rating: 9/10 (19 April 2006)

I would give it a 10 but I still think it should have been another actor to win best actor that year. Yes, Kevin Spacey did a brilliant job in this role. He always gives his best in any role. He lives to act in my opinion. Contrary to other people's opinions. He puts 100 percent in the film and he will go down as one of the great American actors in history. Well anyway, I still think and believe that another actor like Richard Farnsworth should have won for his role in Straight Story because it was his last great role and he has spent a lifetime in the movie industry but that's my only complaint. I do have another complaint and that's the gay couple that lived next door. They just seemed almost functional in my opinion in a neighborhood where straight families are generally dysfunctional in the first place. I don't believe there is anything functional about any family regarding their sexual orientation--straight or gay. Everybody's dysfunctional, it would have been nice to see some of it in the gay couple. They just seemed too happy if you know what I mean. Well anyway that's another little problem with the film but it's otherwise a great film overall. I think Annette Bening should have won Best Actress Oscar beating Hilary Swank who won for Boys' Don't Cry that year. Again she was beaten for her role in Being Julia. Kind or ironic? Annette is brilliant. Sam Mendes has a tough act to follow after winning his first Academy award for his first film. Anyway, I thought Mena Suvari and Thora Birch were pretty good in their roles. I didn't even recognize the great Allison Janney as the depressed wife next door. Maybe her son should give her his stuff to make her happy. She's almost zombie like. I love the scene at the drive-thru restaurant. That's American suburbia in my opinion. I loved Peter Gallagher in his small role. I did feel that the main characters did love each other despite their problems. It's heartbreaking at the end of the film. A great film like this makes you think about your life in suburbia or anywhere. Is anybody really happy? Why do we take on roles like working at jobs we hate and pretend to be happy? That's what American Beauty is really about, are we really happy in our lives? Maybe not as much as we could be. I think everybody can be a great actor or actress-pretending to be happy in an unhappy world called the living. Not to sound depressing but when I saw Carolyn trying to sell a house. The scene of her breaking down and crying was the heartache of life in general. It didn't matter if it was the city, suburbia or rural. Maybe it's a film about materialism, Even the rich aren't really happy, neither is the poor.