September
15, 1999 | By turns savagely funny and sympathetically insightful,
American Beauty is a darkly comical tale of toxic discontentment
and not-so-quiet desperation. "In less than a year," Lester
Burnham (Kevin Spacey) matter-of-factly warns us while narrating the
opening moments, "I'll be dead. But I don't know that yet. In a
way, I'm dead already." Much of the movie, however, is devoted
to his uncharacteristically impulsive grasp at a new lease on life.
When
we first meet him, Lester is going nowhere slowly. A self-described
"loser," he is edging near total burnout at his writing job
for an advertising magazine. Away from the office, within a handsomely
appointed home in a sterile suburb of tree-lined streets and meticulously
manicured lawns, he is hopelessly estranged from his wife, Carolyn (Annette
Bening), a tightly wound control freak who works as a real-estate broker,
and his daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), a sullen teenager who hates both
of her parents.
Lester
is past the point of caring, and devotes his meager energies to simply
enduring. "I feel," he says, "like I've been in a coma
for about 20 years." But he immediately reawakens when he sees
Jane's new best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari), a brazenly alluring nymphet
who brags of her sexual misadventures and dreams of becoming a supermodel.
(She recently had sex with a fashion photographer, Angela tells Jane,
because the guy "shoots for Elle, like, on a regular basis.")
It doesn't take long for Lester to have sexual fantasies about the underage
object of his desire. It takes even less time for those fantasies to
fuel a serious case of the middle-age crazies.
Lester
leaves his job - but not before blackmailing his employers into providing
a generous severance package - and works at working out to turn himself
into a buff babe magnet. He relives his youth by buying the car of his
teen dreams, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, and applies for a low-stress position
as burger-flipper at a fast-food restaurant. He also reacquires his
taste for smoking pot, buying his primo stash from Ricky (Wes Bentley),
the spookily self-possessed son of Brad's new next-door neighbors, a
stern ex-Marine (Chris Cooper) and his catatonic wife (Allison Janney).
The
great thing about Spacey's perfect-pitch portrayal is that, as Lester
joyfully immerses himself in a mid-life crisis, he appears to be surprising
no one more than himself. It's a terrifically physical performance -
Lester moves freer, faster, and actually radiates a joyful glow as he
spews venomous sarcasm - but Spacey also relies on subtlety and nuance
in conveying his character's metamorphosis into a born-again free spirit.
He remains somehow sympathetic even during Lester's eruptions of rage
while bandying with Carolyn, making it unmistakably clear that he still
dearly wishes to connect with this woman who has denied him love - and
sex - for so long.
Of
course, Lester's outlandish behavior repeatedly dismays and disturbs
his wife and daughter. Carolyn seeks solace - and a few selling pointers
- from the local "King of Real Estate," the smarmy Buddy Kane
(Peter Gallagher, who continues to evolve into a world-class character
actor as he ages out of his pretty-boy good looks). Meanwhile, Jane
finds a soul mate in Ricky, despite his creepy habit of videotaping
dead animals, windblown trash and, whether she wants to be on camera
or not, Jane herself. Ricky bristles under the authoritative control
of his martinet father, who demands that his son submit to urine tests
for drug use. But things don't really turn bad for Ricky - and everyone
else - until his rigidly self-disciplined father loses control.
American
Beauty hardly is the first movie to take a sharply satirical view
at the dark secrets and pent-up passions that simmer beneath the façade
of suburban contentment. But screenwriter Alan Ball, a TV sitcom veteran,
takes a fresh approach to the familiar territory, tempering his acerbic
wit with a bemused empathy that prevents his characters from degenerating
into caricatures. Even Carolyn, who starts out as sketchy cartoon of
a shrill perfectionist, slowly emerges as a fully rounded human being
beset by panic attacks and anxious self-doubt.
As
Carolyn, Bening gives a bravely and vividly precise performance, delving
deep beneath the skin even as she plays for laughs. Much the same can
be said for every other member of the estimable ensemble cast chosen
by first-time feature filmmaker Sam Mendes, a British-born stage director
with two recent Broadway smashes (Cabaret, The Blue Room) to
his credit. Working primarily in a style best described as slyly heightened
realism, greatly enhanced by Conrad Hall's artfully evocative cinematography,
Mendes occasionally pauses for flights of surreal fantasy. Even more
impressively, he gracefully maneuvers through a tricky shifting of gears
in the film's final minutes, as American Beauty smoothly segues into
an unexpectedly moving consideration of just how beautiful life can
be.
To
be sure, it may be difficult to fully understand or appreciate the wonder
Lester experiences during his climactic epiphany. "But don't worry,"
Lester comforts us. "You will. Someday." Seeing American
Beauty is a good way to start.