(US) Certificate: 18. Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper
I can’t help but find that it’s always so much harder reviewing ‘critically acclaimed’ films. For one thing, expectations are far higher than usual, and the possibility of disappointment lurks around every corner. So, the question is, does American Beauty deserve the plaudits it has so far received. Is it, as the Golden Globes would have you believe, the best American film of last year?
Well, yes and no. Because American Beauty is a film of ‘moments’. And some work, and some, unfortunately don’t. The plot is the simplest thing about the movie. A forty-something American man (Spacey) slowly realises how unhappy he is with his life, family and job, and so set’s about changing it. He loses his job, but blackmails his boss into giving him a year’s severance pay, starts smoking dope, working out, and fantasising about his daughter’s best friend. And, surprisingly, through these actions, he, briefly, finds some kind of happiness.
But the film doesn’t simply concentrate on Spacey’s attempts to improve his routinely tedious life. It also focuses on Spacey’s own family – his daughter’s attempt to find love, yet to conform to her friend’s expectations at the same time, and his wife’s affair with a real estate agent. But it doesn’t stop there, also spending much time exploring the lives of the family next door, a repressed Colonel and his family. And this is possibly to the film’s detriment. Spacey shines when he is on screen, yet when the film concentrates on the daughter, the pace slows, and interest is soon lost. The same applies to Annette Bening’s character – when on screen with Spacey she capture’s the audience’s interest, but in the scenes where Spacey is absent, she becomes far less interesting.
So far this review has been a little negative, but this is only in response to the over the top acclaim it has thus far received. Because much of the movie is, quite simply, superb. The script cuts and sparkles throughout, and the quality of acting is excellent. Spacey’s gradual ‘growing down’ is a joy to watch, his daughter’s attempts at understanding not only her family, but life in general, are bittersweet, but always involving. It’s shot sumptuously, the camera delivering each and every minute detail of American middle class life, and, in it’s liberated attitude towards drugs, sex, and homosexuality, the film does suggest at least some optimism for society.
American Beauty is a distant cousin to Todd Solondz’s ‘Happiness’. It takes a detailed look at the lives of ‘average’ americans, and, unsurprisingly, finds them to be confused, complicated, and pessimistically, depressed. But it’s not as good as Solondz’s movie. It’s not quite as intelligent as it thinks it is, and whilst it provokes thought, it fails to offer or suggest any answers. For it is the ending which I have the most problems with.
(Stop reading here if you don’t wish to know the ending of the movie – Ed.).
Because it takes the easy way out. Spacey’s character is killed pointlessly by a next door neighbour. So we never get to see if he had made the right choices, or if his ‘mid-life crisis’ was to seriously destroy his life. By killing the narrator we are given an ending in which his actions cannot be judged adequately because we don’t know what the outcome of them would have been. Sure, in the final voiceover he seems positive enough, almost glad of his death, but if he had lived, well, then I think the movie would have been far more interesting.
So, to conclude, do see this movie. It’s full of exhilarating, innovative moments. It’s well acted, scripted and shot. It’s just not quite as good as everyone has made out. If you haven’t seen Happiness yet, rent it immediately. Then catch American Beauty when, or if, you have a spare night free.
Alex Finch.
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