Quite good, but "Happiness" has definitely more bite!

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 2000)

CONTAINS SPOILERS
The acting is very, very good: Annette Bening, in my opinion, in one of her very best performances. Kevin Spacey is not bad either and most of the dialogue is definitely on par. Still, the plot and the way it develops leaves quite a lot of question-marks, especially to the morale of the whole: [Warning - here follows a number of spoilers to the story; don´t read further if you don´t want to be let in on what actually happens and how the film ends!!].
Kevin Spacey´s revolt against the daily routine seems, when you think about it, quite hollow: Is it really such a (meaningful) revolution to quit your boring job and then make a "fresh start in life" by taking a job in a hamburger-joint and frenetically doing your best to emulate an idolized teenage-era, basically consisting of smoking a lot of marijuana, while pumping iron in your garage and jogging around the neighbourhood to improve your body? This "revolution" seems to me quite shallow and would, in the longer run, probably leave the main character in other kinds of problems than the ones he so earnestly tries to free himself from. In that sense, the somewhat stereotyped murder-sequence in the end probably saves the story from this inherent weakness - if the main character dies quite early on, there is no need to worry about the longterm consequences brought about by his new lifestyle. However, it is possible to see the story in a somewhat different light if the "turning point" in the end would have given rise to a new direction to the revolt than to teenage-regression. This, however, is never dealt with by the film.
In that sense, I for myself am of the opinion that the darker sides of the "American middle-class dream" is dealt with much more sharper and with more coherent lead in the film "Happiness" from 1998: Definitely more bite in that one than the, admittedly talented, soft-hamburger-version of American misery given in "American Beauty".