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American Beauty (The Awards Edition) Customer Reviews (55 - 57 of 109 Reviews)

American Beauty is Spacey at his best...again, but wait, there's more. This time, a team of actors and actresses that nearly show him up accompany Spacey. A true movie ensemble including Annette Benning, Chris Cooper, Thora Birch, and Wes Bentley threaten to steal the spotlight.
A seemingly typical suburban neighborhood gets an in-depth look beneath the shallow surface. An ordinary, financially well-to-do family is followed through the point of view of the father (extraordinary Kevin Spacey). He narrates his life and fills the audience in on all of his quirks, flaws, and limitations, as well as those of his wife (Annette Benning), and daughter (Thora Birch). These introductory moments in which Spacey reveals a side of his family that no one in the neighborhood dare discover are executed with a touch of comical ingenuity. To glance beyond this comical absurdity exposes a miserable, dysfunctional, household with no escape from their perpetual sorrows. When the movie is seen through this perspective, it loses its humor, but picks up a deeper, more real meaning. This double angle that persists throughout the movie is one of the elements that make this movie so brilliantly interesting. To reassess the movie allows the deeper, more serious meaning to become more prominent, but while watching in the moment, laughter is most likely to be the initial overwhelming response. The movie is incredibly unique in its entire concept. It is so clever, serious, and funny all in one. No other movie has risked implementing such an unlikely combination. The result is absolute, inarguable success.
American Beauty deals with the true nature of life, attempting to enlighten its viewers, by doing so in a charming, eloquent manner, as opposed to shoving it down our throats. 'What is beauty?' is the question that this movie raises. Is it found in a nice looking house, a good-natured person, a flower, a gorgeous woman, or is it more abstract than that? What if beauty was found in exceptional circumstances that cannot be reasonably accounted for, or what if it were merely in understanding? All of these ideas are aroused; none are straightforwardly answered, though one theory that seems to come across clearly is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Every moment of every scene enacted in American Beauty is done with such precision and vitality, that they all become memorable without exception. The characters are all well developed. More interestingly, each character is severely flawed, some more than others, but each is forced to account for these flaws. The character of Kevin Spacey, Lester Burnham is one of great complexity, as are most in the movie. Lester has just decided that he would like to do more with his pathetic life than laze around and remain to be pathetic for eternity. He revives a suppressed, vivacious identity that he soon embraces. With this new livelihood, comes a price. His wife and daughter who have grown exceedingly distant through the years are not ready to take on a whole new Lester Burnham.
To say that American Beauty exhibited superb acting throughout would be a major understatement. Kevin Spacey was utterly astonishing in his ability to convey the character of Lester Burnham. Annette Benning as Lester's wife, Carolyn Burnham was as she has never been seen before. In comparison to her flaky, overdone role in The Siege, she seemed to have undergone some sort of miraculous endowment of acting skill, as well as passion for her part. She worked beautifully with Spacey, as did the daughter, Thora Birch, and the rest of the crew. No one was really better than anyone else because each actor played his role with such grace and dignity that none can be considered second-rate. The rest of the credit is awarded to first-time feature film director Sam Mendes who envisioned the entire film. It was he who set the mood, worked on the unique camera angles, informed all of the actors of how there characters were to be projected, and it was he who incorporated all of the minute fine points into a giant masterpiece.
No complaints can be made of the unblemished American Beauty. It deserves Oscar attention to the highest degree.

Stunning
Red roses. White roses. Red blood. Red lips. Bars. Reflections. Look closer.

Don't watch American Beauty when you're distracted. More than any film I have ever seen, the cinematography and direction give details so intricate that even the color scheme has caused heated debates amongst my group of friends. The film has everything that makes a moviegoing experience, from a pitch-perfect cast (even the Smiley Burger drive-through woman is ideal) to the masterful lighting. Though much has been made of the mature themes of the film, any viewer who has handled The Usual Suspects (another Spacey masterpiece) or The Silence of the Lambs can appreciate American Beauty for the, well, beauty that it is.

The DVD provides some insight into the fascinating cinematography, but focuses more on the cast and direction. I was hoping to learn more about the film by watching the director's commentary version, but was disappointed in that Mendes did not mention many of the details I had noticed myself.

Still, the American Beauty DVD is fitting for a movie of such brilliance.

The dark underbelly of the American Dream
"American Beauty" is a lyrical, though tragic, story of lost illusions and lost hopes, told with much satiric insight. It depicts upper-middle-class suburbia as a paradise lost. The almost Freudian perespective of the film delineates the welter of sexual and emotional drives, as well as the projections and repressions responsible for shaping and influencing supposedly "normal" behaviour. The chief characters (the disaffected husband) brilliantly played by Kevin Spacey, his faithless wife (Annette Benning) and their troubled daughter (Thora Birch) are depicted as affluent reapers of the benefits of the American Dream, though their lives are hollow, artificial and pathetic by contrast. This film is a damning overview of America today. The haunting music score, cinematography, scripting, acting and direction are of the highest standard. The film combines domestic tragedy with mystery, character study and some stylised and epiphanic symbolism as in the image of the piece of paper floating in the wind without cease, circling endlessly, circling in a void, roaming as if in desperation, floating with no place to go.