I have a fun question for all of you readers out there: if you could live anywhere in the world, what type of place would you choose to live in? I know that some of you would choose the stimulating atmosphere of a concrete jungle (e.g. New York City, Chicago, or Hong Kong), while others would prefer something on the other end of the spectrum, like the quiet solitude of a rural countryside. Then, of course, there would always be that third group of people who enjoy what's couched between the rustic and the metropolitan: suburban, small-town America. In fact, I'm sure most people would prefer to live in the suburbs, given how greatly they've been romanticized. Despite the classic allure of the "white-picket fence,” though, suburbs are not always perfect worlds of cleanliness, conformity, and puritanical family values, and Sam Mendes' witty and facetious black comedy, American Beauty (1999), attests to that.
American Beauty, which pays homage to films such as Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), and Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's timeless novel, Lolita (1962), is the typical story of love, self-discovery, and family-togetherness...except for one thing: it's not. The movie, which opens with camcorder footage of a young teen half-heartedly asking her boyfriend to kill her father, follows the life of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and his friends and family. Lester, who narrates the film from beyond the grave, is a 40some magazine-writer in the throes of a mid-life crisis. His marriage is stale and dispassionate, his realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Benning), is a frigid perfectionist, his daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), is a typical disillusioned and insecure teenager whom he can barely speak with, and his unfulfilling job is run by sharply-dressed, calculating efficiency experts. However, Lester's dormant passion for living is suddenly reawakened when he lays eyes on Jane's girlfriend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), a glowing, blonde-haired vixen. Enraptured by her nubile looks, Lester becomes a much more carefree, defiant, and outspoken individual. He quits his job, blackmails his boss, buys and begins smoking pot with his next-door neighbor, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), a resolutely individualistic 18-year old who dresses in all black and captures the hidden beauties of the world with his camcorder, purchases a Firebird without his wife's permission, and starts lifting weights in his garage so that he can impress Angela (whom he frequently fantasizes about). However, his aberrancy doesn't go unnoticed or unchecked, and as his wife and daughter begin to disapprove of his newfound persona, Ricky's authoritative and homophobic, marine colonel father, Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) begins to suspect that his son is gay, and Carolyn begins an illicit relationship with Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), the real-estate "king" whom she idolizes, things start spiraling out of control more and more quickly until an eventual act of violence occurs.
What’s very peculiar about American Beauty is that the title of the film nearly contradicts the subject matter of the actual story, except it doesn’t. The sheer brilliance, originality, and poignancy of the film is that it challenges our dogmatic, pre-conceived notions of beauty while illustrating the complexity of the concept. During one famous scene of the film, Ricky shows Jane a video of a plastic bag (in front of a brick wall) that gracefully floats in the wind. While Ricky sentimentally describes the experience he had taping the bag, the wistfulness in his voice grows, and we realize soon enough that we aren't just seeing another mixed-up, drug-dealing teenager with a camera. We're seeing a human soul-- paralyzed by the extraordinary aesthetic power of what many consider to be frivolous and insignificant-- bearing its true self upon the world. What American Beauty seems to suggest is that the transcendental pulchritude of the world isn’t simply found in breathtaking landscapes or celestial vistas. It’s also found in the seemingly innocuous particulars of everyday life: the tiny blades of grass that grow in our front yards, the droplets of rain the patter on our windows, or the plastic bags that blow in the wind. That being said, American Beauty remains entertainingly fresh by also not condemning our standard, culturally influenced views of beauty either, and several scenes attest to that as well. During one scene, Lester--completely transfixed-- fantasizes that he is inside a gymnasium all by himself watching Angela, in her cheerleading outfit, seductively tease him (before she opens her zippered coat and a profusion of red rose petals float towards us), and during another one, similar to the first one, Lester fantasizes about Angela-- covered in a sea of rose petals--lying naked on his bedroom ceiling. The film also benefits greatly from its superb acting, especially on the part of Kevin Spacey, who delivers a stirring, yet at the same time, playfully charismatic performance, and its cinematography. The contrast between luminous views of suburbia and all of its neatly manicured lawns and tree-lined streets, grainy, black-and-white camcorder footage, and ethereal dream sequences (in which abundances of red rose petals inundate the scenery) is a wondrous feast for the eyes.
However, the story is what primarily attributes to the excellency of this film and the sharp writing and piquant black humor add to its panache. American Beauty weaves in the themes love, family, friendship, homosexuality, drug use, and death while primarily driving home the message that the sterile appearance and monolithic homogeny of small-town America cannot alleviate the agitations of the human spirit. No better example of this can be given than a scene in which Lester wakes up languidly and, from beyond the grave, narrates that “this is my life” and that “I’m dead already.” Later, Carolyn exhibits a similar display of spiritual despair when she fails to sell a house. After all the prospective buyers leave, Carolyn, alone in the respective home, shuts the curtains and begins sobbing heavily. She slaps herself several times, attempting to regain her composure, and what’s clear is that Carolyn’s frustration isn’t driven by a desire to escape the ennui of everyday life. Instead, her frustration is driven by a desire to reach a sublime, quixotic state of flawlessness, perfection, and success. When the desires and frustrations of Lester and Carolyn (respectively) clash, though, we are given a startling vicious, yet penetratingly hilarious, vision of marriage, family life, middle-age malaise, and all of the turmoil that accompanies it, and one particular scene attests to that as well. In one scene, Lester and Carolyn get in a huge argument in front of Jane at the dinner table. However, this isn't your traditional argument where people scream at each other until hoarse. This is the type of argument where Lester and Carolyn are boxers in a ring or soldiers on a battlefield, volleying catapult projections at one another. In many ways, Lester and Carolyn are very similar to George and Martha from Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and the stylistic way in which they exchange venomous insults--broken up several times by Lester importuning someone to "pass [him] the asparagus"-- is what adds to the funny, yet unsettling atmosphere of the scene.
A hauntingly beautiful, well-acted, and crisply-written story with a range of moods—from acidic and morose to playful and sad, American Beauty is definitely worth a “closer” look.
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