American Beauty

PLOT:

Lester Burnham (Spacey) is a 42-year-old father and advertising executive who serves as the film’s narrator. “I’m 42 years old; in less than a year, I’ll be dead. Of course, I don’t know that yet. And in a way, I’m dead already.” Lester’s family life is messy—his wife Carolyn (Bening) is an ambitious realtor who feels that she is unsuccessful at fulfilling her potential, and his 16-year-old daughter Jane (Thora Birch) is unhappy and struggling with self-esteem issues. Lester himself is a self-described loser in a dead end job with despicable bosses he does not respect. Lester is reinvigorated, however, when he meets Jane’s friend and classmate Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) at a high school basketball game. Lester immediately develops an obvious infatuation with Angela, much to his daughter’s distress. Throughout the film, Lester has fantasies involving a sexually aggressive Angela and red rose petals. The Burnhams’ new neighbors are Col. Frank Fitts, USMC (Cooper), his dissociated wife Barbara (Janney) and his teenage son Ricky (Bentley). When confronted with the gay couple living two doors down, Col. Fitts reacts with homophobic disgust.

Over the course of a few days, each of the Burnhams individually makes a life-changing choice. Carolyn meets real estate rival Buddy Kane for a business lunch and ends up beginning an affair with him and later takes up gun lessons. Seconds away from being downsized, Lester defiantly blackmails his boss for $60,000, quits his job and takes up low-pressure employment as a burger-flipper at a fast food chain. He continues to liberate himself by trading in his Toyota Camry for his dream car, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, starts running and working out to “look good naked” in order to have a body that will impress Angela, and starts smoking a genetically enhanced form of the marijuana he enjoyed in his youth. Jane grows increasingly disillusioned with and distant from Angela, allowing herself to develop a romantic relationship with Ricky. Ricky and Jane bond over what he considers to be the most beautiful camcorder footage he has ever filmed, that of a plastic grocery bag dancing in the wind; meanwhile, Ricky also quickly befriends Lester and secretly acts as his marijuana supplier.

Col. Fitts, concerned over the growing relationship between Lester and Ricky, roots through his son’s possessions, finding footage of Lester working out in the nude (captured by chance while Ricky was filming Jane through her bedroom window)—slowly bringing him to the conclusion that his son is gay. Buddy and Carolyn are found out by Lester, who seems to be completely unfazed by his wife’s infidelity. Carolyn, who is almost more devastated by Lester’s indifference than by her being exposed as an adulteress, is further dismayed when Buddy reacts by breaking off the affair. As evening falls, Ricky returns home to find his father waiting for him with fists and vitriol, having mistaken his drug rendezvous with Lester for a sexual affair. Realizing this as an opportunity for freedom, Ricky falsely agrees that he is gay and goads his father until Col. Fitts throws him out. Ricky rushes to Jane’s house and asks her to flee with him to New York City—something she agrees to, much to the dismay of Angela, who quickly protests. Ricky shoots her down with her deepest fear: that she is boring and completely ordinary. Devastated, Angela storms out of the room, leaving Jane and Ricky to one another permanently. Meanwhile, Carolyn, listening to self-help tapes in her car, decides she refuses “to be a victim,” loads a gun and starts the car, apparently with the intention to kill Lester.

An emotionally fragile Col. Fitts approaches Lester’s garage/workout room in the pouring rain. Lester is concerned and attempts to comfort him, but is taken by surprise when Fitts, who turns out to be a closeted homosexual, kisses him. Moments later, Lester finds a distraught Angela and the two of them prove to be in the appropriate mental spaces to be on the verge of sexual intercourse. The seduction, while powerful, is derailed when Angela confesses that she is a virgin. Now viewing her only as an innocent child, Lester immediately withdraws, his affections shifting to that of a father-figure, and they bond over their shared frustrations with and concern for Jane. Lester asks “How’s her life?” and is pleased when Angela says that Jane’s in love. When Angela then asks how Lester is, he realizes, to his own surprise, that he feels great. A happy Lester sits at the table looking at a photograph of his family in happier times, as Angela is at the toilet, unaware of the gun being slowly led into the camera frame and pressed to the back of his head. A gunshot is heard and blood splatters the kitchen wall.

In his final narration, Lester looks back on the events of his life, intertwined with images of everyone’s reactions to the sound of the subsequent gunshot, including one of a bloody and shaken Col. Fitts with a gun missing from his collection. Despite his death, Lester, from his vantage point as narrator, is happy.

REVIEW:

With the Oscars airing last night, I felt it was about time I actually reviewed a somewhat current winner.  American Beauty, I believe is the film that started the trend of films that no one really knows dominating the awards. I know that I had never heard of it before the 2000 Oscar ceremony.

The acting in this film is superb. Kevin Spacey, as many forget, is a very competent actor. Throughout this film, he goes from being a totally sane man to the verge of madness and the audience is captivated by it through the entire journey. As a matter of fact, we’re not really creeped out by his infatuation with a 16 yr old friend of his daughter.

Thora Birch was born to play this role. A moody teenager who doesn’t believe she’s as beautiful a she is. Sounds just like Thora, to me. She gives the performance of her lifetime on screen, and you can feel her disgust with her father drooling over her friend.

Mena Suvari must have a thing for films with “American” in the title. Along with this, she appeared in the first two American Pie films as well as American Virgin.This role is a departure from her character in Pie, though. She’s sexually promiscuous and more confident in herself, at least when the film begins, as it progresses and we learn more about her, though, she loses some of that confidence (which seems to be going to Thora Birch). Still, her take on this role is not one to sneeze at. Suvari will be a force to be reckoned with in years to come.

Wes Bentley and Annette Benning round out the primary cast and give riveting performances. Bentley is totally creepy as the stalker-ish next door neighbor and Benning shows why she’s been around as long as she has with the range of emotions she goes through in this film.

After watching this film, I am not surprised that it won the Oscar for best picture. It is very well written, directed, and acted. The characters are very believable and you really get a feel for them and the pain they are going through.

I’m not one to usually watch these “artsy-fartsy” films, but this is one that I will watch over and over again. It is THAT good. You should also give it a viewing.

5 out of 5 stars