 |
|
|
|
American Beauty (1999)
 email this review to a friend
Movie Review by Jarrod
July 18th, 2007
|  |
'American Beauty' is about a dysfunctional suburban family, distant and emotionally isolated, each of its members neurotic and desperate for a fulfillment of their deepest desires. Lester Burnham (Spacey) is going through a mid-life crisis, apathetic towards everything, especially his job, which he stands to lose because of some managerial reshuffling. He seeks as little responsibility as possible, using his severance pay to buy the dream car of his youth, and taking on a new position at a local fast food joint. His wife, Carolyn (Bening) is a real estate agent, worried about success, sexually frustrated, an obsessive perfectionist. Their daughter Jane (Birch) hates both of them, and is self-conscious about her body, hoping to save up enough money for breast augmentation, though she certainly doesn't need it. She feels neglected and ignored. She meets the new boy next door, the odd and quiet Ricky (Bentley), who records even the most mundane things on his camera, and is also a drug peddler, a fact he tries to hide from his father (Chris Cooper), who makes him do a regular urine test, and whose homophobia consumes him to the point of distraction. Carolyn finds love with her competitor, real estate giant Buddy King (Peter Gallagher). Lester lusts after Angela (Suvari), Jane's friend. She flirts unabashedly with him; he fantasizes about her. Whether he considers the legal problems of intercourse with a minor is irrelevant, he is free to think about it, and thoughts are not as easily controlled as actions. To impress her, or to make himself look more attractive to her, Lester starts lifting weights and buying dope from Ricky, and it all eventually leads to a surprising series of outlandish and bizarre misunderstandings, with a tragic outcome, but one that could not really be averted, given the natures of these characters. The film balances drama with dark comedy, and it offers many stinging observations on marriage, adolescence, and other such topics.
Spacey, who won his second Oscar for his performance here, provides the narration, which sort of tells you what you can expect to happen right from the beginning, but he is perfect as the sad and lonely Lester, and he spends a lot of his time looking and talking like someone ready to commit suicide, expressing only a few moments of joy, but able to deliver dialogue in ways that make you laugh and gasp, with fury and detachment. Bening is a delight, in one of her best roles, and Birch is terrific as the angst-ridden and confused Jane, who wants nothing more than to get away from her parents. Bentley and Cooper brilliantly accentuate the troubled relationship between Ricky and his dad, a man he respects, a former soldier, unable to handle weakness, whose tearful, angry reaction to Ricky's false confession about what he does for a living is one of the best scenes in the film. Suvari appears first as a slutty seductress, but reveals more depth and dimensionality than we expect.
The film's cinematography, from the great Conrad L Hall, offers a lot of close-ups, used effectively and smartly, as well as a wonderfully constructed dream sequence involving rose petals and a naked Suvari. The creative genius of Sam Mendes cannot be understated, either, and he would follow this up with Road to Perdition, another fine film.
email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
Sorry, you must be a member to add comments to reviews.
Join or Login. |
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS
|
