Sensational

Rating: 9/10 (16 May 2000)

You can read 1000 reviews and learn that Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening did an excellent job in there "American Beauty" performances. So I am just repeating that which is so disturbingly obvious. It should also be mentioned that Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, and Mena Suvari were no less sensational in Sam Mendes film directorial debut. The Academy awarded "American Beauty" the best picture Oscar for 1999 and it had some stiff competition. Personally I would have chosen "The Sixth Sense" as best picture but that does not take away from the fact that "American Beauty" was a sensational film.
Sam Mendes deserves the Oscar he was awarded as well. Although new to the big screen Sam Mendes is not new to directing, he is a popular British theater director with credits that include "Cabaret" and "The Blue Room." It's hard to find anything wrong with the film, and I wasn't looking, but I think they could have done without the Thora Birch nude scene. Since she was only 17 at the time special permission had to be obtained from the California child labor board and her parents had to be on the set during the scene. That is reason enough to have left it out and I'm not sure it was even important to the story's development. Still it is the only gripe I have and it is very minor.
The story is a comedy/drama with dark humor about a middle class family that looks good on the outside but is crumbling on the inside. Lester Burnham (Spacey) is the man that hates his job and is stuck in a loveless relationship with his wife Carolyn (Bening). Jane (Birch) is there teenage daughter that resents both of them and thinks they have gone crazy. The neighbors include a drug selling teenage boy (Bentley) and a homophobic, ex-marine father (Cooper). Finally there is Angela (Suvari) Jane's friend and a precocious vixen that Lester become infatuated with. You may remember Suvari as Heather in "American Pie." This is one of those films you can't afford to miss.