# American Beauty (1999)

### reviewed by
Steve Evans

    Cinema Uprising by Steve Evans

American Beauty Dir: Sam Mendes. Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley, Peter Gallagher and Chris Cooper.

The pitch: A man hobbled by a mid-life crisis and a nightmarish family channels his depression into lust for a teen-age girl.

Yes, and there's so much more. A jet-black satire of suburbia, this cautionary fable with a grim, inevitable climax features a stunning performance from Spacey, as the 42-year-old advertising man who hates his job and shrewish wife (Bening). Seldom does a film spew such venom, or offer such a myopic and pessimistic worldview, only to shatter our expectations with a glimmer of hope at the end. In terms of metaphor, as social commentary and, yes, as art, American Beauty is the most challenging film of 1999, sure to prompt controversy and conversation. The constant, symbolic use of the color red is enough to fuel many a late-night discussion, long after the credits roll. Expect Oscar® nominations for both actors, first-time film director Mendes, for the incredible script by television writer Alan Ball (Cybill) and certainly for the picture itself. Let us be clear, so that no one goes into the theater unaware: American Beauty is a difficult, provocative experience, a film concerned with ideas that outwardly decent people don't discuss, though some no doubt ponder in their hearts.

Watching his daughter's best friend Angela (Suvari) perform her cheerleading routines, Spacey discovers a fire in his loins and a passion for life that has been missing for two decades. When he sees Suvari strut, her arms snaking over her lithe body, it's lust at first sight. But Spacey also feels a renewed interest in life that has little to do with sex. Don't dismiss this as just another Lolita tale, although it bears more than passing resemblance to Nabokov's most famous novel. American Beauty is that rare flower in American film – a major-studio (Dreamworks) production with A-list stars tackling material that many daredevil independents might hesitate to touch. The picture works the same territory as Todd Solondz's repugnant film Happiness, except here the characters are treated with compassion and a degree of humanity in spite of their weaknesses.

As the film opens, we learn Spacey's character is already dead. He narrates in flashback, a technique reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard. And it works. Discovering how Spacey will die is critical to the suspense of the heartbreaking final reel. Spacey explains his fall and ultimate redemption in the cynical-comical narration that frames the film. In fact, he says it all:

`In a year, I would be dead,' he says. `In a way, I already was.'

His character is a loser whose career is trapped in an office cubicle. His wife, a real-estate saleswoman, and their teen-age daughter (Birch) despise him for no reason other than he is socially awkward. Spacey doesn't even seem to like himself, though he masturbates in the shower before work and declares it will be `the highlight of my day.'

His wife would rather tend to her blood-red roses, framing the white-picket fence around their well-appointed home. She is so obsessive-compulsive, so driven in her pursuit of perfection, that her pruning shears are color-coordinated with her clogs. She worries that Spacey might spill a beer on her $4,000 silk upholstered sofa. Bening is mesmerizing in the role.

Spacey's daughter is embarrassed for him as he stumbles out the door, spilling the papers in his briefcase on the sidewalk.

The man knows something is missing from his life. When he meets the teen-age sexpot Angela, his brain begins to boil. He fantasizes encounters with the girl, reclining on a bed of rose petals. He quits his job, extorts $60,000 from his hateful boss and buys a 1971 fireapple-red muscle car. American Woman by the Guess Who blares on the stereo as he drives home. He wails along with the anthem, closing his eyes and nodding in recognition when that serpentine guitar solo kicks in (this movie deals brilliantly in subtext). He starts working out with free weights in the garage, after he eavesdrops on Angela telling his daughter that her dad would be hot if he had a little more muscle tone.

At a business party, while his wife flirts with the local king of home sales (a slick, silver-haired Gallagher), Spacey sneaks out of the noxious gathering to smoke a joint in the alley with the waiter (Bentley), a strange kid who's just moved in to Spacey's neighborhood. He's the creepy teen-ager next door.

Bentley has his own obsessions. He videotapes Spacey's daughter from his bedroom and slowly, shyly, begins an awkward romance with the troubled girl. He also sells high-quality pot and hides this enterprise from his abusive, homophobic ex-Marine father (Cooper). Bentley has to provide urine samples to his brutal dad every six months, ever since he was busted for dealing. His mother has been so brow-beaten by Cooper that she can only stare at the wall and make apologies for a house that is already spotless. Bentley is a brooding teen, biding his time for a chance to leave home. And although he professes to love the beauty in the world, in his piercing stare we sometimes catch a glimpse of Columbine madness.

Director Mendes propels these miserable characters on a collision course, then casually introduces a gay couple who live down the street. Theirs is the only enduring relationship in the film.

Their chance encounter with Spacey and later, with the baleful Cooper, triggers a series of comic misunderstandings between the core characters. The confusion escalates with frightening speed into violence and mind-numbing tragedy on a thunderous, rain-splattered night.

Spacey and his teen-age obsession exchange unforgettable words that will leave even the most jaded viewer reeling. Spacey's closing monologue, indeed, his final words, will haunt us long after the lights come up and we are left to ponder -- as if his words were not enough -- that richly symbolic use of red: the color of jealousy and hate. And of love.

Rated R for sexuality, nudity, familial violence, pervasive language and drug use.

Cinema Uprising copyright C 1999 by Stephen B. Evans. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior, written permission of the author.

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