American Beauty Review

Overall Rating

Kevin Spacey in fine form.

A superb 1999 film starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, which won 5 Oscars including best picture. This one is simply first class, arty, inspired thought provoking and highly entertaining. Kevin Spacey both plays and narrates the life of Lester Burnham, a man suffering a mid life crisis who decides he is going to change things, shake things up a little. His job is dull and unfulfilling as is his family life for both his wife Carolyn, (Bening) and teenage daughter Jane, (Thora Birch) both treat him with contempt. Lester decides to resign from his job and starts on a typical mid life crisis course of buying sports cars, smoking drugs and getting his body back in shape. Meanwhile his wife is also having a personal crisis of her own, a middle aged real estate agent trying to survive amongst stiff competition has taken its toll on her confidence and she is beginning to flounder under the pressure. She prides herself on being well organised and tidy to an almost obsessive degree but slowly and to her distress, her life is falling apart. At a high school basketball match Lester meets his daughters classmate Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) and almost immediately falls in love with the nubile beauty and begins to fantasise about her sexually which oddly involves lots of rose petals. Meanwhile daughter Jane has formed an unlikely relationship with next-door neighbour and camcorder toting weirdo Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) who likes to make films of the effects of the forces of nature upon inanimate objects. Ricky has an ex marine bully for a Father (Chris Cooper) who is constantly on his back due a previous drug problem the youth had in the past. As Ricky gets friendly with Jane he forms a close friendship with Lester too and begins to supply him with Marijuana to satisfy his new found habit. Meanwhile wife Carolyn has embarked on an illicit affair with a fellow real estate agent and rival Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) who teaches her how to shoot a gun and helps put some much needed fun back into her life. Lester soon finds out about the affair but appears unfazed. The whole film deals with the breaking down and reorganising of each of the Burnham family and releases the plot on a slow fuse; it climaxes where Daughter Jane is planning to leave her dysfunctional family and run away with Ricky, and Lester, after finally realising his fantasy and having the nubile Angela offer herself to him, refuses her advances after finding out she's not the sexually adventurous person she likes people to think she is and is in fact still a virgin. Also he has rejected the ex marine next door neighbour who in a confused state attempted to kiss him. Lester appears at this point to be relaxed and has a new found calm to his life when sat in the kitchen looking at a photograph he is shot in the back of his head. The final moments focus on a sort of summary of his life from his perspective as the rest of the cast are pictured reacting to the sound of the gunshot. It really is a superb film, one for the collection for sure. A must see.