American Beauty - Movie Review
2"American Beauty" (1999) directed by Sam Mendes is taboo, highly inappropriate by most societal standards, and also stars Kevin Spacey who is not exactly the most respected individual, but one can't deny how incredible of a film it is. My only complaints are that the entire film is somewhat directionless and carries itself without true meaning, and I was also not completely satisfied with the ending as it felt more random / unlucky than intentionally written to serve a greater purpose.
Lester Burnham (Spacey) is a seemingly typical middle aged married father who despises his life. Lester becomes infatuated with his teenaged daughter Jane (Thora Birch)'s best friend Angela (Mena Suvari) and will not stop fantasizing about her despite it obviously being inappropriate and him being married. Jane begins to fall for the new neighbor boy named Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), who has an obsession with filming everything he perceives as beautiful. Lester's wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) cheats on him, but Lester decides to make some drastic changes in his life and ultimately does not care.
American Beauty is an incredibly intriguing watch start to finish, and I was highly engaged throughout each and every scene. The actors give the utmost passionate and high level performances which are integral to selling the somewhat ridiculous and perplexing story. I appreciated the taboo nature of the film and how risqué is was willing to be. While the ensemble nature of the film initially caught me off guard, it was another key selling point to success, offering so many different perspectives from many different genuinely interesting characters.
Nothing in this movie was actually genuinely offensive and you would have to be going in with a purposefully bad attitude / negative / virtue signaling mindset to be offended by it. Yes, Thora Birch does do a topless scene at the real life age of 16 or 17 in this (not sure which age exactly as Google told me both several times), and while that's one of the most talked about scenes in the entire movie, I really didn't see any problem with it and it was not a big deal to me, in fact it was one of the major climaxes of the movie and was rather important to solidifying Jane & Ricky's relationship and feelings towards each other in this. The soundtrack and tone itself is very bitter sweet and I loved it, but I loved and respected it even more for eventually shifting and becoming a little more positive, hopeful, and sincere, particularly with Lester's self realization moment towards the end.
American Beauty is a stellar example of how to do a taboo drama correctly. Everything about it is inherently interesting and I was glued to the screen start to finish which is rare for me nowadays.
Video by Rainy Nights.
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