American Beauty captures the aridity of the American Dream at century’s end with rapier wit and an arresting visual style. The dark satire swept the Academy Awards in 2000, winning five — Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Screenplay and Cinematography — and marked auspicious debuts for director Sam Mendes and writer Alan Ball. Annette Bening’s unhinged real estate agent, Carolyn Burnham, is a suburban American classic — a Martha Stewart gone mad. She dances the tango of a dying marriage with Kevin Spacey’s Lester, surrounded by a brilliant ensemble cast including Chris Cooper, Peter Gallagher and Mena Suvari, the nymph who awakens Lester from his midlife coma. –AFI
Possibly one of the worst films of all time. So overbearingly smug. It reeks of pretentiousness (a rare case where a film actually deserves this overwritten criticism word), filled with one dimensional characters and themes that are stated, but not ever explored. I doubt I could understand why anyone would ever love this shallow excuse of a film.
"It's just a couch!!" Love it. The final sequence brings me to tears everytime, his memories and the way Carolyn embraces Lester's clothes, so touching. Wonderfully shot.
American Beauty is a seminal male alienation movie typical of the late 90s. It came, of course, in the last year of the decade, a year that would change the way movies were made with its a thrilling… read review
I just watched American Beauty for the first time in many years and the main impression I got was that I must have been brainwashed or just swept up in the acclaim that the film received back in 1999… read review
The first film that I can actually say (when I watched it quite some years ago, and than the theory just confirmed itself over the years) that changed my perspective on whole film absorption that I… read review
I have seen this movie four times within the past ten years, and it hasn’t aged a bit. I remember each time I have seen it vividly, because it is a knockout movie. emotionall wrentching. I bet, and… read review
