Ugly, cheap and yet moving

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2000)

"American Beauty" is the name of a kind of rose that doesn't have either thorns or scent. As such, it stands as a symbol of Lester's life, a life without peril (other than being threatened by the possibility of being laid off by a kid half his age), but also without charm or passion. The ways in which Lester seeks to escape such a life may strike us as puerile, but the fact is they are not important. The important thing is the call for personal freedom, and the refusal to live according to unacceptable standards simply in exchange of pretty things, like a big house, a neat garden and an Italian silk sofa.
The characters are all certainly clichÃ©s, but nevertheless they come through as real people: the fact that we have seen the man suffering a middle-age crisis, the unsatisfied wife, the beautiful but empty headed beauty queen, the disciplinarian marine, etc. in a hundred movies doesn't mean that such people doesn't exist in real life, and unlike other such movies, they are not presented to us here as beasts with curious habits to be shocked about, or as caricatures to be laughed at, but essentially as human beings that deserve our compassion. They are not heroes: like the flying plastic bag, they are ugly and cheap, but they are ultimately moving and poetic.
The performances are all brilliant, especially Kevin Spacey's: he wins all our sympathy, something that is not as easy as you may suppose, since his character's embarrassing and cheap side is shown to us in all its ridiculous glory. I don't know if he'll win the Oscar (which after all is mostly about studio politics), but his is one of the best performances I have seen in the last years. A few small sillinesses of the movie (such as Lester spitting his beer when he hears that Angela is going to spend the night in his house, or the Marine watching old Reagan movies) are not bad enough to spoil the general effect. I must say it is nice to see a movie that tells us how precious and unique life is, and does that without pouring the saccharine in. Hope it starts a trend.