Lester and Carolyn Burnham are on the outside, a perfect husband and wife, in a perfect house, in a perfect neighborhood. But inside, Lester is slipping deeper and deeper into a hopeless depression. He finally snaps when he becomes infatuated with one of his daughters friends. Meanwhile, his daughter Jane is developing a happy friendship with a shy boy-next-door named Ricky who lives with a homophobic father.There are many, many films out there that concern themselves with the fabled mom's apple-pie family unit. It's easy to grasp why filmmakers, and by extension audiences, are so captivated by this topic; it allows us to gaze upon a mirror image of ourselves, or what we could be in different circumstances. Of course most of these pictures are intentionally weird and hyper-dramatic, concerned only with the immoral underbelly of our culture. It's a fine tool in the right context, though something of a blunt instrument when you're looking to create a more refined portrait. Fortunately director Sam Mendes displays a delicate and gentle touch, astonishing given that this is his first film.
Certainly he's superbly assisted by Alan Ball's screenplay for American Beauty (here also work that is its own debut). Ball manages to create characters that are consistently surprising, but not in an artificial manner. The shocks that emerge arrive naturally, from the way the people are and the situations that condense around them; so when Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) starts to re-evaluate his life and how it's being lived, he does so because of certain catalysts. One's Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari), the precocious and sexually aware best friend of his daughter Jane (Thora Birch). The second is new next-door neighbour Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), clean-cut yet slightly too confident for one so young. Both have a far greater impact on Lester than they could ever guess.
For most of the running time Mendes directs quietly, letting the actors grow into their roles; perhaps a respect learnt from working in theatre. He does, however, wrap American Beauty within quotation marks -- the legacy of re-editing Ball's first draft script after the completion of shooting. Right at the outset Lester informs us of his death and how the film covers the last year of his existence, then at the end he lets us in on what it all means. As it happens this prior knowledge doesn't distract, the story is far too engaging for that, but it does stick out if you start to ponder. A more interesting legacy is the short sequence of Jane being camcordered by Ricky; her words stay with you, later reappearing unannounced. As matters spiral towards a bunch of conclusions, you're drawn to the edge of your seat, expectant and nervous. American Beauty's that absorbing and a bit of tinkering around the edge is unlikely to cause a problem.Of course (as Mendes realises) no matter how good your source material, the end result depends absolutely upon the strength of the cast. That's why he should be grateful to casting director Debra Zane; somehow she manages to populate American Beauty with performers talented enough to subsume their egos. Spacey seems truly plugged into his mid-life crisis, revisiting the themes of his youth while casting off unwanted shackles. His portrayal feels deadly accurate, weighted with joy, amazement and concern. As Lester's wife Carolyn, Annette Bening hovers close to the edge of hysteria, grappling with a career that's beyond her capabilities and a neurotic conviction that everything will work out if you try hard enough. Birch is convincing as their spoilt child, hurt but too cool to show the pain, though she's overshadowed by Bentley. In many ways he embodies the spirit of American Beauty, while still convincing as a man on the cusp of adulthood.
Still, given that this moderately clumsy attempt at setting the context may be down to inexperience, it's handy that a mature hand steers the camera. Conrad L. Hall, almost forty years a photographer, captures a beautifully drawn world. Never jarring in his choice of shot, Hall demonstrates ingenuity and a sense of playfulness; his American Beauty drifts easily between real and surreal, making a delightfully understated marriage. The score complements and underlines this relationship, marking the boundaries of dream thoughts, then evoking memories that we can share with Lester. Driven by superb performances, all of these elements (whether visual, aural or something less concrete) pull together such that the film really fires on all cylinders.
For most of the running time Mendes directs quietly, letting the actors grow into their roles; perhaps a respect learnt from working in theatre. He does, however, wrap American Beauty within quotation marks -- the legacy of re-editing Ball's first draft script after the completion of shooting. Right at the outset Lester informs us of his death and how the film covers the last year of his existence, then at the end he lets us in on what it all means. As it happens this prior knowledge doesn't distract, the story is far too engaging for that, but it does stick out if you start to ponder. A more interesting legacy is the short sequence of Jane being camcordered by Ricky; her words stay with you, later reappearing unannounced. As matters spiral towards a bunch of conclusions, you're drawn to the edge of your seat, expectant and nervous. American Beauty's that absorbing and a bit of tinkering around the edge is unlikely to cause a problem.
Unlike so many movies, black comedy American Beauty feels complete within itself. It's not a message picture, though it's possible to decode a mantra from the drama, and it's definitely not high-concept. What it has is a theme, of looking more closely at life, and vividly drawn characters; these are real people, sedated through complacence, nudged into rediscovering what they'd forgotten about themselves. It's not so much that nothing is as it seems, the film just isn't that cynically manipulative. Instead it shows how if you take folk for granted then sooner or later they'll shock you by acting seemingly out of character; it's not true but your simplistic assumptions make it seem so. American Beauty doesn't chart new territory, but then what film does? Instead, intangible and complex, it deals honestly with a fascinating possibility.
