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American Beauty (The Awards Edition) Customer Reviews (100 - 102 of 109 Reviews)

Even Red Roses Cannot Disguise The Truth...
I first watched American Beauty a few nights ago after putting it off for years. I instantly wanted to see this film after it scooped all those Oscars back in 2000, but I never got around to doing so. To cut a long story short, I watched it the other night, after forgetting about it. My expectations, admittedly, were rather low. How wrong I was.

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is your average, middle-aged family man. He works a $60,000 per annum job and lives as home with his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) who is a straight-laced, worry wart who sells real estate and is obsessed with looking her best and being successful. They both have a daughter, Jane (Thora Birch) who is your typical rebellious teenage girl, unsatisfied with her figure, despises her parents and longs for someone who will love her. Living next door we have the 18-year-old Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) who lives with his father Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts and his rather catatonic wife. What we have appears to be two typical American families, living through the trials and tribulations of family life, and living the American dream.

However, things are certainly not as they seem, and director Sam Mendes cleverly unravels this as the film progresses. Lester instantly falls for his daughter's best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) at a game. His marriage is currently in a rut, his wife hates him and they haven't made love in a long, long time. Her beauty transforms him, and some of the greatest moments of this movie are where he detaches from reality and slips into a fantasy world where it is just him and her together - the most famous being the nude rose petals scene. He is soon working out and building himself up to impress her. Jane is 'friends' with this vixen character Angela, but at times the latter's beauty depresses Jane, who is already insecure about her appearance. Angela can't understand why Ricky isn't interested in her, just because every other guy is. Ricky, however, is more interested in Jane. She hides it at first, but deep down, she's touched that someone is interested in her. What blossoms is a sweet and beautiful relationship, despite the insane parents they both have. Some of the film's best moments are the intimate connections of loneliness that these two angst-ridden teenagers share.

Ricky's father is one of the most striking and memorable characters from the film, and all for the wrong reasons. He's a homophobic and straight-laced man who lives his life by rules. When he bursts into Ricky's room and beats him for entering his secret room, not only are we shocked by what is happening, but by Ricky's lack of resistance. Suddenly we realise why he spends so much time filming floating paper bags, dead birds and Jane - he believe in the hope of escapism from his horrific father ("Yes Sir. Thank you Sir."). We also realise why Ricky's mother is slightly catatonic - she has obviously been beaten into submission by the evil man. This is the point in the film, in my opinion, in which the film's dark and violent side breaks through. American life is not as shiny and happy as it seems.

Carolyn starts an affair with her real estate competition, and it's truly funny to see her try and act all sophisticated around Lester. She is so materialistic, it's unreal. It's more important to her than living, and it's a sad state of affairs when we witness this. The finale to the film is superb. By the end she's a self-help sad case and a gun-toting loony who realises everything she's lost. Lester takes more control of his life, dropping his $60,000 a year job to take up a job in a fast-food restaurant (I love his line, "I'm looking for the least possible amount of responsibility!"). He lets go of his whole life and responsibilities. He decides to look after himself and perfecting his goal on bedding Angela. By the end of the film he almost succeeds, until she confesses it's her first time. All the blabbing about the action she's been getting is all rubbish. Lester realises too late how immature he has been, and he can't go back and change it. The conclusion of Lester's final state comes from someone who cannot face up to who he is, because he lives by society's expectations. He can't face up to being something he is so against, and this serves as a stark reminder to us all.

The whole film is superbly filmed and brilliantly acted. Kevin Spacey is superb, as is Annette Bening. Thora Birch is simply gorgeous as Jane, and her angst-ridden teenage role of rebellion is incredibly believable. Wes Bentley shines amazingly, and Mena Suvari is very convincing as that feisty vixen. This really is one of the best-assembled casts I have ever seen from a movie. Sam Mendes pulled off an amazing feat in directing this movie, and for once, the Academy got it right in making this Best Picture Of The Year. There are moments in this film that I can relate to more than any other film, and some moments make me want to cry because of the intense emotion on display.

OVERALL GRADE: 10/10

I watched this film with my mum the other day - she didn't like it much because of the swearing, but that's to be expected, but to dismiss it as a poor film as she did stunned me. This was by far one of the best movies I have ever seen, and a few obscenities isn't going to change that! The soundtrack to this film is equally stunning - the quiet music in these intimate moments is fantastic and completely draws you into the film with the characters. All in all, this is a must see movie for anyone who is a fan of social satires. A masterpiece of the biggest standards.

The true champion of 1999 - American Beauty.
American Beauty really was a beautiful piece of classic film making. It made me think about my own life, my path, my place in the world, how stupid life really can be but its these moments which I should give such gratitude for. It also had a beautiful take on death - I never felt so secure after watching this film. Its demonstration of how complex we make life for ourselves and what we think will make us happy was so sternly powerful and moving, for its the more subtle things all around us everyday that we should be living for and give thanks to. We have forsaken our real happiness for the things that we think should make us complete and content as individuals.

Alan Ball's script was just too awesome - the way it majestically flowed was so elegant and inspiring. It contained numerous moments of comical excellence but entranced you with its unfolding drama. It managed to mix these things up into one hell of a story and with Thomas Newman's chilling, atmospheric yet sublimely beautiful score it all combined to leave you with a sense of breath-taking emotional awe. And of course the highs and lows of the film's finale - I should have felt sad but it gripped me so powerfully that all I could feel was this astounding happiness and optimism for life. No film has ever made me feel like this.

And I'm not alone here or dillusional in its merits and strengths as a film. We may be able to disregard its Best Film at The Oscars seeing The Academy is so unbalanced in its pickings of past Best Picture accolades (Forrest Gump over Shawshank, Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan for example) but The BAFTA's, Australian Film Institute - Britain and Australia's most prestigious awards committee, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, the Chicago, Las Vegas, Kansas, Dallas Film Critics Association Awards, the London Critics Circle Film Awards, Online Film Critics Society Awards I could go on all gave it the Best Film title amongst other awards to its name. And it was widely accepted by the 'big' (and lesser) film critics Roger Ebert, Rod Dreher, Mike Clark etc as a top 4 star film.

Too damn right!

Dark Comedy
Sorry, but you can't judge this movie without having first seen it. First of all, it's not just a whodunit. It's a movie about life, and how we all live in cages that society has made for us. It's about Lester (Kevin Spacey) breaking free of society, and his failure. It's about how his life slowly unravels,, and his ultimate death. It truly is drama; it makes you laugh sometimes (quotes "You are SO busted, and f**k me your majesty!), but at the end it's really sad. It's not just a whodunit, and by the way, it wasn't the daughter.

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