"American Beauty" (1999)

Looking Closer: A Second Look at Sam Mendes' "American Beauty"

"American Beauty" (1999) Review

 

There are a lot of things that could be said about "American Beauty", and nearly all of it is true. Yet this film is one amongst a rare group of films that ages well as some of the obvious reactions float away and the true beauty becomes apparent for, as Ricky Fitts (Wes Bently) says, "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in."

The film focuses on the family dynamics for Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) during the last few months of his life as he reveals during his opening monologue. The film jumps off from there showing Lester's life as a middle aged man working a dead end job. The plot in this film as it progresses though becomes less important than the characters that compose the fragmented mosaic of Lester's life. These include Lester's wife Carolyn (Annette Bening), Jane (Thora Birch) his daughter, Ricky Fitts, Ricky's father, Col. Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper), and Jane's friend Angela Hays(Mena Suvari) among many others each acting out their small pathetic lives. Together these characters come together, separate, and dance gracefully through one anothers lives imparting on one another, in the end, lessons of the world.

Each of these actors are well aware of their role in the film and portray their characters with a sense of responsibility to the viewer, as if to draw the character out of the screen and place him or her in the car next to you on the highway. The acting excellence is what helps to make the film, and though the characters may occasionally be a bit too simple to actually be real people (not network TV style single objective characters).

This being said, the film has a unique sense of self-awareness which gives it an overly glossy feel as people truly act on their dreams and motivations and everyone, in the end, seems to find some resolution.

The film builds off of very traditional film making techniques, using lighting in overly obvious ways, and failing, save for notable sequences, to break the mold of "slice of life" American drama. The film also makes use of several dream sequences, which, though sometimes incredibly awkward, do add to the films overall tone and help to push forward Lester's motivations. The film also makes use of a now overly used filming technique; the shaky camera. This gives the film a sense of reality also helping to emphasize what is important in Ricky's life. This, now cliché, does not help the film yet rather gives it a crutch on which it may stagger forward while trying to develop their characters.

Yet, with all these styles and phenomenal actors in the film, the film fails to push them as far as it can. The film rather turns the characters into caricatures of personality flaws, which makes it difficult to accept that Annette Bening's character could have any change of heart about her relationship with Lester during one scene and one scene only. This being said, the film does work actively to humanize the characters, relying heavily on their dramatic ending to do so and, in essence, so snowing the viewer with sorrow and joy, as well as many other more finely tuned emotions, to make their characters real. This puts the film dangerously into "Crash" (2004) territory of emotional manipulation. This being said, the ending of this film is still one of the most beautiful sequences in recent film history and is well deserving of some (though not crazy amounts of) praise.

On second viewing, perhaps the best realized and most intriguing characters, were those with limited dialogue. An excellent example of this is Barbara Fitts (Allison Janney) who has minimal dialogue yet so clearly expresses herself through her blank gaze and aloofness helping to paint such an amazing character into the film and asking questions of the Fitts' that simply had never been asked before.

The film, perhaps rightfully, was ranked by Premiere as "One of the 20 most overrated films of all time." This feels somewhat accurate, and a major portion of that is in the story telling. First, the story has far too much going on, and with numerous little scenes and stories in the background, the film feels as if it is a Siamese twin of two films that, rather than living their separate happy lives, are doomed to live in abject horror together in a hideous mess. Something had to go. In addition to this, the screenwriting felt sometimes stale as too often it stated the obvious, and, rather than allowing actors to show how they feel through their actions, the script simply comes out and says it for them, which would have worked well if this were a radio play, yet it was not. The film also had a profound sense of importance, with speeches such as Lester's at the end of the film when he declares, "You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday." What if you have no idea what you're talking about? It's a silly statement, among many personal philosophies which, if one were to declare them aloud, would be laughed at. This leaves the viewer with a stale taste in their mouths, yet ultimately is what many would say completes this film.

In short "American Beauty" is a film about people, yet its execution is too cliché and too deep to actually be about people. Rather, the film is a collection of wonderful ideas about the world, perhaps too deep for the medium, that end up being eloquently expressed in a dramatic work of the cinema. It is a good film, yet it is far from the best film ever made. Maybe you need to look closer.

Stars: 8/10