Beautifully crafted, near-perfect film

Rating: 9/10 (11 July 2006)

The film chronicals Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation for his daughter's Lolita-like attractive friend.
No film has created a bigger advance stir than American Beauty, and, for once, the product lives up to its buzz. The film is a dynamite comedy-drama and along with "Eyes Wide Shut", "Girl, Interrupted", "Election" and "Boys Don't Cry", the best films of 1999. It's so daring and original that it would've been impossible to predict how it would do commercially back in 1999. On the surface, it's such an uncompromisingly bleak look at the hollowness of the American Dream and suburbia that audiences may just turn off to it and masse. But it's also hilarious, directed with a breathtaking flair (Sam Mendes who directed last years Jarhead) and fuelled by a career-defining performance from Kevin Spacey and Anette Benning. It also rises above its darkness to make an affirmation of life that's so exquisite it's hard to resist.
On the surface, American Beauty is a brilliantly acted and inventive satire, with an amazingly perfect supporting cast that includes Thora Birch and Mena Suvuri. One of thing I found strange about the film was it's similarity to Ang Lee's bitter and amazingly brilliant "The Ice Storm" (released two years earlier), despite the former being a more realistic tke on American life; none the less American Beauty was still a flat-out masterwork (with a few flaws), I highly recommend it.
9.8/10
See It If You Liked: The Ice Storm, Happiness, The Virgin Suicides and Blue Velvet