American Beauty opened to widespread critical acclaim without a consensus on the film’s approach or tone. Is it a tragedy or comedy? Farcical or cynical? Snarky satire or searing exposé? This conundrum caused a backlash, a few weeks after its release, and it was touted as both brilliant and overrated by the time the Oscars rolled around. An inability to categorize it with quick and easy labels produced a negative reaction in the end, since audiences were left to decide for themselves whether this film celebrates our visions of beauty or deconstructs them.
Characters are both revered and reviled by other characters as it unfolds, with reactions simultaneously dismissive and insistent. This ambitious and ambiguous perspective is established from the beginning, with a direct nod to Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. The story opens with voiceover narration from a protagonist who is already dead. What we’re watching is an extended flashback played out in the omnipotent mind of a person who isn’t alive.
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey, picking up his second Oscar) is a doughy, middle-aged, sales executive living in picturesque suburbia with his wife Carolyn (played by the equally award-worthy Annette Bening). She pretends with icy aggression that their life is exemplary while sporting an early “Karen” hairdo with all the personality traits befitting that look. The tension between Lester and Carolyn manifests itself in clever, sardonic jabs of exaggerated truths. It’s a parlor game of one-upmanship, with each trying to out-slay the other, not unlike George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Meanwhile, their daughter Jane (Thora Birch) despises both of her parents and attempts to navigate high school with her self-proclaimed slut of a best friend named Angela (Mena Suvari). In addition to the resident, pristine-perfect gay couple (Scott Bakula and Sam Robards), the Burnhams have new neighbors next door. Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) attends school with Jane. He makes a hefty profit selling drugs while video-taping “painfully” beautiful things like dead birds, floating plastic bags, and Jane herself, whom he finds “interesting.” A pair of future Oscar-winners play Ricky’s parents: a Nazi-loving, retired colonel from the U.S. Marines named Frank (Chris Cooper, giving a brilliant performance) and his near-catatonic wife Barbara (Allison Janney in a small but devastating role).
As the plot advances toward our protagonist’s preordained demise, layers are peeled back on all of these characters. We begin to see complex motivations, hypocrisies, and truths. Ugliness becomes beauty and vice-versa. Despite Lester’s creepy, mid-life lust for high-schooler Angela, it’s Carolyn who cheats on their marriage with her professional rival Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher). Sex-starved Angela loves all the carnal attention, but in the end, it’s an act. When Lester discovers she is inexperienced, he pulls away, and they have a surprisingly respectful conversation. Ultimately, it’s Colonel Frank who falls the farthest. His monstrous, military mind is shattered once he believes his son Ricky is being paid by Lester to have sex.
The final act of American Beauty plays out like a whodunit, with three characters positioned to commit the murder. Jane voices hatred for her father while Ricky records it on camera. He asks if she would like him to kill Lester, and she says yes. Their disturbing video also serves as the prologue to this movie. Carolyn regularly alleviates her mounting frustrations with a revolver on a firing range, but when her affair with Buddy ends, she races home in a rage with a pistol by her side. Then there’s Frank, who shows up at Lester’s garage, soaked to the bone and in tears. Unable to articulate his emotions, he pulls Lester close to him for a kiss. This shocking sexual repression is revealed just moments before he returns to his house to fetch a gun.
Are we to laugh at these people or honor them? Are they dismissible or indelible? Is the plastic bag merely swirling trash, or is it Pop art? I have different reactions when I watch this movie. My first impression in 1999 was appreciative and respectful. I loved the biting humor, the thought-provoking dialogue, the remarkable (and often imitated) music score by Thomas Newman, and the skillful direction by Sam Mendes. Future screenings got me thinking how wonderful and sad these characters are. I can laugh at them and cry for them at the same time. I don’t have to pick one response, and that’s what makes this film so special.
American Beauty
Director | Sam Mendes |
Primary Cast | Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Peter Gallagher, Allison Janney, Chris Cooper, Scott Bakula, Sam Robards, Marissa Jaret Winokur |
Familiar Faces | none (no repeat performers from the previous winning films) |
Firsts | First film produced by DreamWorks to win Best Picture, first movie directed by Sam Mendes |
Total Wins | 5 (Picture, Director, Actor: Kevin Spacey, Screenplay: Original, Cinematography) |
Total Nominations | 8 (Picture, Director, Actor: Kevin Spacey, Actress: Annette Bening, Screenplay: Original, Cinematography, Editing, Score) |
Viewing Format | Blu-ray Disc |