What Is Up With This Film?

Rating: 1/10 (9 January 2000)

What Is Everyone Talking About?
I saw this film on the recommendation of people whose opinions I trusted. They said it was a masterpiece. I feel like I saw a different movie. American Beauty was one of the biggest turkeys I've ever seen. I very nearly walked out on it, which is something I don't do. I found the plot contrived and predictable and the characters cartoonish. The suburban schlub Dad? The frustrated wife? The brooding teenager? The closeted gay psychopath? These aren't characters, they're cliches. Spacey and Benning were good, as they always are, but no actor can rescue a script this far down in the trash. The scene with the bag blowing in the wind was the single most brainless thing I've ever seen in a movie, except in Z-grade sci fi or horror (and it gives some of those films a run for their money.) This pic would be perfect for MST3K if it weren't so brain-deadeningly dull. I came expecting intelligent, engaging drama. All I got was overwrought, amateurish nonsense.