Look closer!, you might find yourself in it.

Rating: Null/10 (16 March 2000)

Sam Mendes, newcomer in the film industry, knows his way around America's middle-class, even though he's british. Allan Ball's screenplay is a masterpiece. American Beauty will surely become a classic in a few years, well it is actually a classic now.
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a forty-something married man who suddenly feels an infatuation that would change the rest of his boring and monotonous life when he meets the sexy and hungry for sex teenager Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari).
In the meantime Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) is a typical middle-class real state saleswoman, who tries to portrait the perfect little universe of her house, despite her husband's unhappiness.
Jenny (Thora Birch) only child of this couple, fights every day against her own insecurity and lack of love.
Everything is perfect, in this sure to win the Academy Award, picture.
American Beauty is not only beautiful, it's almost perfect.
Mendes portrait of american middle class, full of frustrations, full of infidelities, full of wanna bees, full of unexcitement and monotonous situation has made everyone that has seen it to look closer, not into the neighbor's house, but to it's own soul, and it's own unhappiness.
Look closer, and closer, and if you find yourself, don't stop looking, because if you still continue to follow the pre-established cannons of society, you may end up as unhappy as the Burnham family.