| American Beauty (USA, 1999, director Sam Mendes, starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora
Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari)
I had read quite a few reviews of American Beauty before I went to see it -
reviews which said things like: stunning, marvellous, precise, magical. And I was
convinced - after all, Kevin Spacey is in it, it must be good, come on!
It is a good film. There are some funny parts; laugh-aloud funny. And
some genuinely touching moments; Annette Bening's final scene brought a lump to my throat.
But it is a film about the angst and undercurrents of American suburban life which is
something I cannot whip up much sympathy for. It is a film examining the staleness of a
marriage - which The Ice Storm does with more success. It deals with teen love and
confusion - but My So-Called Life (although 'just' a TV series) can never be
bettered. It looks at the weirdness of suburbia - but so did Blue Velvet.
I liked American Beauty. The look of it is ominously pretty: like a chocolate
box with blue skies and red red roses. I suppose that is deliberate: the message is that
underneath all this is regret and longing for the self we lose as we age; Bening's uptight
real estate saleswoman was once a girl who faked seizures at parties if she was bored;
Kevin Spacey's bored, depressed 'loser' once had a good relationship with his wife and
daughter - he is a decent, unhappy man who tries - too late - to put things right. And
there are some very chilling elements to the story such as the violent, bigoted neighbour
with his scared, catatonic wife and their voyeuristic, drug-dealing son.
My main problem with it is that right at the start the voice-over tells you something
that you then wait for all the way through and I think this spoils it; the shock would
have been better and more emotional had it been just that, a shock.
American Beauty really is a very good film. It is absorbing, funny,
sad, well-acted. But it is not all that. It didn't blow me away. I felt
slightly removed from it; after all, I have seen it all before and better done. That's the
trouble with rave reviews: I must learn to ignore them and then I won't feel so
disappointed. |
