American Beauty is a comedy on the surface, but it can be found only below a remarkable social commentary laced with dark satire and detailed development of character. In what could be one of the great films of our time, Kevin Spacey performance is worthy of all the awards he won for this movie.
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) lives a life filled with suffering for every human being. His manager will be firing him. His marriage to a real estate agent, Carolyn (Annette Bening), is only for the display. His daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), experiences more than just her father's usual adolescent anger, as she rightly points out to him "You have not even spoken to me for months."
The response Lester gets is to make a dramatic lifestyle change. He blackmails his boss from nearly $60,000, buys the car he's always wanted, develops a secret crush on the best friend of his daughter, starts smoking dope, and gets a job he enjoys: flipping burgers at a fast-food restaurant.
Jane likes her new neighbor and classmate, Ricky (Wes Bentley), who has the attention of Angela Hayes, Jane's best friend. Angela slips away into a world of eternal isolation as Jane and Ricky grow into a couple.
Lester Burnham's job is an unusually tough one. It exhibits sensations of paedophilia, fixation, and carelessness; to name only a few. Kevin Spacey does it all, thereby building a convincing character and providing one of the finest performances in memory. Annette Bening and the rest of the cast are all doing sound work and performing their roles with integrity.
The film's title is as thought-provoking as is its subject matter. Is "American Beauty" a reference to the rose garden loved by Carolyn? Might it be Angela Hayes, the blond hairy, blue-eyed cheerleader who lives in constant terror of ordinary living? Most possibly it is a reference to what the impossible dream is that director Sam Mendes and the writer Alan Ball is trying to display.
Two groups will see this movie. One can think of it as a funny, out of the ordinary sitcom. The other will see specific values but also the deep symbolic patterns that lie between the lines.
