Review of American Beauty (1999) by Blake P — 01 Dec 2015

I fear a mundane middle age more than I fear death. I'm afraid of dissatisfaction, being a part of a loveless marriage, having kids who don't like me and would rather move on to adulthood than stay under a roof where things aren't the way they'd like them to be. Of course, such things don't occur unless you're intolerant, self-centered, and stuck in a thankless job - but the movies have proven to me time and time again that, once you hit your late 30s, early 40s, things aren't as much "I Love Lucy" as they are "Happiness." My immediate family has proven to me that a wife and kids can be a good thing so long as you work hard and treat everyone right, but stopping my probably-not-there concerns about the future isn't much of a possibility.

Movies that further my anxieties follow the norm made by "American Beauty," which wonders aloud if apparently having it all is as great of a thing as it's cracked up to be. What if you do everything right in your life and still find yourself looking for a deeper meaning? An extraordinary (and extraordinarily funny) inside look at the pitfalls that dampen the cinematic trope of the mid-life crisis, it is a massively intelligent film that finds a dark humor in the trivial tragedies of suburban life.

It depicts the currently (and perhaps everlastingly) dejected life of an all-American family, a Nuclear one that surrounds their picture-perfect home with a white picket fence and a stunningly red coat of roses. Pop, Lester (Kevin Spacey), is trapped in a boring job at an advertising agency; his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), is a struggling realtor with a winning smile and a bad habit of breaking down in soap operatic tears the minute something doesn't go her way; their daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), is so perpetually ignored that she's saving up for a boob job just so she can get attention from someone. They all hate each other - but it wasn't always that way, and that makes "American Beauty" more heartbreaking that we would like to admit.

None of their lives have much direction, so when Lester looks out into the world and catches a glimpse of Angela (Mena Suvari), Jane's best friend, at a cheerleading event, it's like a miracle: he finally has a purpose in his life, which is to impress, and maybe even seduce, the young, sexy blonde, though not realizing just how stupid, and creepy, that is.

As he descends into an existence that seems to revolve only around "looking good naked," Carolyn and Jane's problems simultaneously escalate. Carolyn starts having an affair with her rival realtor (Peter Gallagher) and passes the time at the local gun range, and Jane decides to take up a relationship with the kid who just moved in next door (Wes Bentley), who obsessively films everything he sees, who is a pathological liar, and who is a drug dealer on the side.

We have a feeling that they all know that these hopes of validation will lead to nowhere, that their lives are a mess in the ways members of the suburbs can only understand, but it doesn't stop them from attempting to stop going through the motions and sin their way back to the top. The film ends in a death, and we know this immediately as "American Beauty" starts - Spacey's narration comes from beyond the grave - but that isn't what drives the film. What drives it is its relatability, and how true it feels when peering through the looking glass of the American Dream. It's the American dream after the happy ending washes away and reality sets in.

The film is the directorial debut of Sam Mendes, who has gone on to make such classics as "Road to Perdition" and the latest two James Bond films. "American Beauty" brings nuance and uncomfortably successful humor to a plot that we've seen many times before; it is the crown jewel of the mid-life-crisis movie, with Spacey (pathetic), Bening (piercing), Birch (scared), and Suvari (seductive) leading the way with indelible performances.

I still have no doubt that the 1970s, along with the '90s, are the best decades in cinema. Most of their classics are small, character-based, talky, moving, original. "American Beauty," which arrived at the end of the era, is one of its most heartfelt. We know its characters - we've passed them on the streets, we've made small talk with them. Once we see life through their eyes for two hours, we understand them.