"My name is Lester Burnham. I am forty-two years old. In less than
a year, I'll be dead."
With these words opens the most hypnotic, poetic, life-affirming film
of the year, and easily one of the best films of the decade.
The genius of "American Beauty" is not easy to describe. It
is not easy to explain. The movie is not like your average film. It
is, in fact, a movie unlike any that I have seen. More than anything
I believe this suggests that the film is well on its way to becoming
a classic.
It is a simple tale. It is the tale of a neighborhood. More specifically,
it is the story of a family. The Burnhams. Lester Burnham (the main
focus of the film, its imperfect heart, in fact) is a man facing the
middle of his life with little or no interest. He's the sort of man
whom people don't remember meeting. His ordinariness is the bane of
his existence.
His wife, Carolyn, would seem to the source of many of his problems,
but that would be unfair. She has a few problems of her own. She is
better at hiding them, that's all. So good that she barely acknowledges
them to herself.
Their daughter, Janie, is perhaps the most well-adjusted. She has made
no illusions about life. She is insecure, unhappy with herself, and
searching for something better. Something which her parents begin to
do through the course of the movie.
"American Beauty" is a rare, beautiful movie. It is a movie
that could easily be depressing. As Lester tells us when we first meet
him, he is doomed. Thus Lester's metamorphosis becomes poignant and
sad. As we see him striving, experimenting and discovering, we know
that it will all end much too soon. As Lester, Kevin Spacey delivers
a marvelous performance. The sort of performance that The Academy might
overlook, but which the history of cinema certainly will not. This is
a daring, brilliant performance. The sort of thing so good that a lesser
actor might get typecast for it.
In fact, all the performances are superb. Annette Bening brings sadness
and pain to a role which could have easily degenerated into yet another
domineering bitch. It's really quite amazing. As are the other performances
in the picture: Wes Bentley as Ricky Fitts (a character we don't quite
know what to make of), Thora Birch as Janie, Mena Suvari as the seemingly-well-adjusted
cheerleader (who isn't quite as healthy as she seems) and the rest all
give their all, imbuing American Beauty with amazing tenderness and
intensity.
The film is, from beginning to end, a triumph of script, visuals, direction,
acting, editing, you name it. This is a film focusing not on special
effects or plot, but instead on humanity itself. It triumphs because
it shines its light onto us and makes us examine our own soul.
And that is the most special effect of all.
