With broad strokes, Sam Mendes paints a picture of suburban family life in 1999’s “American Beauty.” The film swept the 2000 Oscars with a staggering 5 awards, but that’s not its greatest impact. That it still holds up 15 years later, across a decade that saw the advent of Facebook and smartphones, and America’s cultural shift after 9-11, is a testament to this achievement. The film leaves an impression in its wake, manages to avoid moralizing, and causes us to question its characters’ sometimes-monstrous behaviors, ironically, by allowing us to understand them.
The film is not an achievement of any one discipline, but a marriage of script, acting, and filmography blended to near-perfection. Kevin Spacey took home an Oscar for “Best Actor in a Leading Role” for his portrayal of Lester Burnam, and his greatest achievement is that he doesn’t come across as a pathetic victim, but a sometimes-jerk that is accomplice to his own misery. Watch as he goes through his joyless job on rote, or winces in pain at the enthusiasm his wife has for her clients, her job, and her life apart from him. While Spacey has turned in impressive performances before in films such as “Se7en” or “A Time to Kill,” Lester is one of his most unique, capturing us from the start.
Nominated for an Oscar for “Best Actress in a Leading Role” for her portrayal of Lester’s wife, Carolyn, Annette Bening also turns in a performance to be admired, putting to shame other roles such as “The American President” or “The Siege.” A perfectionist who owns her own realty company, Carolyn’s world is built around perfection. The perfect façade of roses that line her house, as her perfect family, mask a world that is anything but, a world where perfect portraits stand vigil over silent family meals full of tension. Sandwiched amidst these two lay their offbeat daughter Jane (Thora Birch), her friend Angela (Mena Suvari), and a next-door neighbor Ricky (Wes Bentley).
Cinematically, “American Beauty” tells its tale with awe and ease, its camera fluctuating between ordinary beauty and commonplace horrors. Ricky films a plastic bag blowing in the wind, citing it as the ‘most beautiful thing ever seen.’ With the same detached wonder, “Beauty” uses pull-back pans and lingering cameras to focus on family tension, underhanded abuse, and the internal suffering of its characters. Ricky’s mom sits blank-faced at a table as Ricky introduces Jane; in a similar fashion, the film portrays a lonely Carolyn slumping against pulled blinds after a failed attempt at a sale, cursing herself not to cry.
What works about the film is that it doesn’t moralize with finger-pointing, but provides an objective glimpse at people who have been denying important needs and desires until they can do so no longer. Spacey’s Lester could have achieved personal fulfillment by quitting a thankless job long ago. Only in a film like this could the passing glance of a teenage girl become an anthem for him to change. Likewise, the progression of Ricky’s homophobic, militant father (Chris Cooper) to a broken man is expert in its execution. It doesn’t hurt that Cooper pulls off the act with ease; his appearance in 64 titles, as well as winning an Oscar for “Best Supporting Actor” in “Adaptation” show his excellent versatility.
For their right, Suvari and Birch do an excellent job playing off each other, one, a school beauty, the other a quasi outcast, with Ricky coming between them in ways that were probably brewing long before he got there. The film follows a tragic progression, and though viewers may be able to guess some conclusions, you find yourself long-forgetting what brought you in to the film, but only the haunting world you have found yourself in. Oddly, the film has much in common with catharsis films such as Kevin Kline’s “Life as a House,” yet approaches its catharses in bizarre and dream-like fashions. You’re not meant to necessarily loathe “American Beauty’s” characters, but you’re not meant to like them terribly either. It’s the sympathy the film dredges up even amidst this that is its greatest asset.
It’s hard to find fault with “American Beauty.” Most will be able to find some familiarity in its characters, as well as lessons contained in unlikely places. The film is an anthem to stand up for your life, while also a cautionary tale against blaming others for unhappiness rather than looking inward. “American Beauty” is no less powerful in 2014 than it was in 1999; in some ways it may be more urgent now than ever before. With detailed character development and a spotlight on family dysfunction, “American Beauty” stays with you. It’s characters aren’t saved by the end, but find strength within themselves. Maybe that in itself’s not beautiful. But somehow it’s still refreshing.
– by Mark Ziobro
