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1Reviews and everything / American Beauty critical review

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American Beauty ★★★★★

Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Wes Bentley, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari

Running Time: 2:02

Year: 1999

Country: USA

Awards: Golden Globe, 5 Oscars

Provocative, deft and poignant, American Dream arraigns America and the famous American Dream, delving deeply into the intricate depths of the human soul. For the English director Sam Mendes this is his first film. However, he had made his mark with The Blue Room, the scathing play with Nicole Kidman. Kevin Spacey plays a pathetic father of a family who suddenly awakens from a mid-life crisis that sparks off a whole new world of beauty into his life. The film delivers a comeuppance with pungent brio to several layers of the American society that is obsessed with an outer appearance of success ignoring the frustration on the inside. Inveterate suitors of Puritanism, patriotism, empowerment and corporate America will be laughed at raucously.

The film starts off strongly, showing Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) in the shower masturbating. He explains that this is his highest point of the day. Thus his sexual frustration is revealed. Although Lester is married with a daughter, he has not had sex for some time with his wife (Annette Bening) who is preoccupied with constructing a shell of a vision of a happy and successful family life her family is having, rather than living a happy one. The sexual exasperation is ultimately revealed when the husband sees his daughter’s classmate, which is why he starts working out to become sexier. The young girl embodies the American beauty that, to Spacey, is revealed through fresh red rose petals. There are roses in her wife’s garden but they stand for the absence of sexual desire for his wife. Thus the father is confronted with his desire for the girl and the Puritan values which govern the present-day America’s idea of normal life. These values seem to be the reason for his homophobe neighbour who turns out to be a latent homosexual that hides his real self since Puritanism is narrow-minded and does not accept it.

True patriots have a unique opportunity to take a look at their true identity in the film. The neighbour, a retired colonel, has his family army-styled, turning his wife into a dummy that he thinks for, or rather orders to and making his family watch war-movies. But like in a regimented community not everybody likes the authority, which is only natural if it is implemented in a harsh way not taking into consideration a person’s feelings and his identity, so his son rebels and becomes a drug dealer. To add insult to injury, the colonel cares nothing for his own flesh and blood and he acts merely out of principles and because he had previously been taught. Unfortunately, there is nobody around to tell him that. There is a strong doubt that a person who has a plate of the Third Reich as the highlight in his collection of military artefacts will listen, should anyone care to say it.

The problem with Empowerment in the American society is that it places success on top, rather than a person’s soul. Success is an important part of the US culture but one should not confuse the two: your qualifications, your CV, and your life. The film suggests that the ultimate goal is not to possess as many things as you can. What is the point in it if you are not enjoying your life? The film poses yet another question: does the real power come from the possessions that you have or guns or big powerful cars?

Corporate culture is not spared either. We face the horrors and moral corruption that reins US companies. The company where Spacey works uses a young employee to justify its right to sack anybody the management feels like. But Lester plays as nicely as they do to him and threatens to sue them for sexual harassment.

Spacey’s family has achieved the American dream: a big house, nice furniture, a cute daughter and a minivan. But none of the members of the family is happy. The daughter (Thora Birch) seems to be the only person who sees the morally unacceptable ugliness of the place where she lives and does not want to put up with it. She is thinking of maybe running away with her boyfriend, colonel’s son, who is very much like her. She is saddled with living a fake life, having fake feelings and emotions and all her pretence seems to be dying on the vine as the film reaches its culminating point, when Kevin realises that “the sum of his past actions does not determine who he is, but it certainly determines who he can be”, that it is never too late to realise that “life is not a checklist of acquisitions or achievement” and that everything he possess is just pretext for the real goal which is spiritual. There is as much beauty in the film as there is in the world. And there is also a message that will remind us that you don’t have to buy success by becoming like everybody else. It will come, as you become more yourself since the real success is being happy.

The acting blends perfectly with the tone of the film. Kevin Spacey is marvellous, and Lestor’s role suits him far better than that of Professor Dumbledore. Annette Bening and Thora Birch are sparkling and add to the whole impression of the movie.

Alex Kvartalny @ flamedragon27.blogspot.com

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