American Gothic (American Beauty (DVD))

Member Name: gollygumdrops

Product:	American Beauty (DVD)
Date:	24/09/01 (165 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It makes you think, a lot, about everything

Disadvantages: It offers no answers

This is one **cked up movie.

Damn that 75 word minimum.

American Beauty is not what expected. It goes way beyond what I’d hoped for from one of the most hyped movies of the last few years. I’d imagined it to be a standard tale of mid life crisis, with a man falling for his daughters beautiful friend. That does happen, kind of, but it’s an itsy bitsy tiny part of the movie.

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is our hero, and our anti hero, and the character that makes us squirm uncomfortably in our seats as we recognize just a few flashes of our own lives reflected in the tedious hell that is his daily existence, a life that has decayed over the years in a series of barely perceptible compromises until he can hardly recognize the man he was and the woman he married.

His wife is just plain beastly, and is well portrayed by Annette Benning, but is probably the character I felt it hardest to relate to. His daughter Jane is a typical teenager on the brink of adulthood. It is rare to see such a well rounded portrayal of teenagers, and American Beauty does spectacularly well in avoiding the standard stereotypes and presenting us with teenage characters who are complex and believable.

Lester has new neighbours, including Ricky Fitts, the local drug dealer with a curious obsession with Lesters’ daughter. His father is a former Marine, who throughout the film becomes more interesting, yet more disturbing with every scene. Rickys’ mother doesn’t get a great deal of screen time, but adds a new angle of emotion and confusion. A tough part to play, but pulled off wonderfully by the actress who plays CJ in The West Wing.

Dream sequences abound in the movie, some are helpful in understanding what is going on, others are frankly disturbing. All seem to capture a real sense of what dreaming is really like.

So what is American Beauty all about? Sorry, I’ve only seen it th
ree times, so I can’t offer any solid answer. To me it is about the pretences that we all carry with us, and the double and triple standards that we all live with, along with the careful constructions of denial and rationalization that allow us to function day by day.

It is certainly no feel good celebration of American life, but nor is it an outright condemnation of the ordinariness of suburban life.

It’s about choices, it’s about being yourself, it’s about doing what you want to do, it’s about the extraordinary cruelty that exists in even the most well regulated of families. It’s about keeping up appearances, it’s about infidelity, it is about mid life crisis, and it’s about teenage angst. It’s about being in a job you hate, it’s about losing touch with your family, it’s about lost love. It’s about me.

I will watch American Beauty again, and no doubt again. If you haven’t watched it already then ignore everything you’ve heard, and everything I’ve written, watch it and decide what it is about, then watch it with other people and find out what they think it’s about. Watch it after something happens in your life, it will be about something else.

Summary: