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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 list of titles including Fight Club, Office Space, Being John Malkovich, and Magnolia. All covered the same themes of conformity and estrangement from society. From the very beginning, American Beauty hammers its theme as spoken by troubled teenager Jane Burnham (Thora Birch): “I need a father who’s a role model.”
Indeed, the opening has strong similarities to Fight Club. The narrator, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey in an Oscar-winning performance), is seen alone in bed, remarking in voice-over that he is “dead already”. It is no coincidence that this movie was released in the same year that Susan Faludi would publish her Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. Lester will undergo some of the problems presented in the book, predominantly the effects of downsizing in the workplace. Lester’s office life is dry, this being another common theme of the late 90s.
By contrast, American Beauty paints a disturbing representation of women. Annette Bening, as Lester’s shrewish wife Carolyn, veers too close to the realm of stereotype. Although the implications of her character, i.e., that working women are mean, aggressive and break up the family, are troubling, she does touch upon the consumerism and materialism of the 90s in her desperation to sell a house and in the expectations of her prospective buyers.
American Beauty is especially noteworthy as director Sam Mendes’s first exploration of the same shallow suburbia he would revisit years later in Revolutionary Road. That film was set in the Eisenhower era and it is interesting to see how the 1950s shared some of the same problems with the late 90s in terms of suburban life. American Beauty keeps reminding us to “look closer” and when we do, the stains of this seemingly idyllic life become apparent.
Lester’s attraction to his daughter’s teenage friend Angela (Mena Suvari), for example, establishes him as a pathetic, hopeless, and washed-out man. This is the first time he feels any real emotion. It’s as if he has been emasculated during his years of living as a corporate drone in a banal suburban neighborhood.
“There’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary,” says Angela. This is the movie’s way of saying that suburbia forces ordinariness on people, with Lester being the prime example. In truth, however, every family in the movie is dysfunctional and more than a bit weird.
The Burnham’s neighbors, for instance, consist of Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), a young man with a disturbing fascination for filming the private lives of others, and his homophobic military father Col. Frank (Chris Cooper). As was common in the 50s and again in the 90s, TV is the center of life for Fitts family.
Unfortunately, the themes aren’t very subtle in American Beauty and that is a shortcoming. In this zeitgeist movie, we are expected to believe that every family is unhappy and harbors dark secrets. This seems like a deliberate exaggeration used to hammer a theme.
Fight Club and Being John Malkovich are better representations of the same theme. They went for satire rather than wallowing in self-pity and still got their points across. American Beauty is, frankly, a bit depressing. It has some attempts at dark humor but even then the movie seems to be talking down to people and feels sort of disjointed at times.
Sam Mendes would hone his skills more for Revolutionary Road. That movie was still depressing but it worked in context and was subtler in its themes and its characters were complex rather than caricatures. Mendes is a very talented director and despite the obviousness of the film his creativity is evident. American Beauty hints at the greatness to come from him.
Apparent from peering behind the manicured images of the American Dream, American Beauty serves as a cautionary tale about the end of privacy. This was a bold move before the Patriot Act even entered the public discourse. It warns us about a soon-to-come time when you can find out anything we want about anyone, no matter how private, simply by reading their Facebook profile.
As the Burnham family represents the American Dream gone sour, the Fitts family is an allegory for the age of electronic communication. Ricky spends all his time filming the Burnhams. What exactly is his obsession with filming both Jane and Lester? Also, is he blowing smoke in the eyes of his homophobic dad?
Of course, Frank Fitts is also living in a fantasy. He refuses to see the obvious truths about his son and by the end of the movie, his cover will also be blown. Mendes communicates the theme smartly with the sound of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” a song about the futility of everyday life.
The most interesting character in the movie is Chris Cooper’s Col. Frank Fitts. Why did he conceal his secret for so long? How are we to interpret his final act? What is certain is that in the last few days of his life, Lester Burnham really did live his dream.
American Beauty is a good movie but not as great as it should be. Its satire seems out of place. The performances, however, are to be commended. Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper, and Wes Bentley all do a great job. Their performances are better than the movie as a whole, but keep it engaging nonetheless.

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. I really didn’t like American Beauty at all. It has that same annoying, smug fashionable cynicism, that sees the world, or America more like it, as a land of zombies that need to wake up and engage in antisocial behavior to acquire a sense of self-worth. It’s a tired theme, especially these days where writers like Alan Ball and the Fight Club team of Finch/Palahniuk/Uhls can’t help but express their contempt through condescension towards “those people.” And they cloak their daggers in humor, or that irresistable critical term “satire,” so that the poison, like Jim Jones’ koolaid, will go down a little easier with their sheep. What’s interesting is that these films seem to be striving for what the 1960 film The Apartment achieved so beautifully and effortlessly (minus the smugness). I’m not surprised that Mendes and Spacy both site The Apartment as their model for American Beauty, but unfortunately, as much as they would like to be, they aint no Wilder/Lemmon. It’s cynicism masquerading as truthfulness and condescension as a substitute for intelligence.

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 had before it, and on my life also.
Are you what u think you are? Can you accept it? How far you willing to go, to change yourself and the environment you live in? You think you know the answers to this questions…whatch the simplicity and beauty of Beauty. If you accept it, it has so much to tell you… This are my and yours neighbors, this are my and yours parents, this is mine and your life. This is Beauty. No! It’s American Beauty.

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 would go as far to say, the best piece of cinema a major American studio has produced in the past 15 years. I hope it will remain timeless because it is perceptive, honest, and extemely entertaining. I will add that it was very shocking at the time it was releasesed, which added to its initial hype, but the fact that it is basically flawlessly done makes it a real joy to savor as a movie buff every time I have seen it.

I know that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but in my eyes Sam Mendes’ American Beauty is flawless in every way; in fact, its perfect. There isn’t a single thing in this film that I would change or thought “Mendes could have done this better.” American Beauty is shocking, hilarious, depressing, awe-striking (is that even a word? or should I say awe-inducing?), inspirational, moving . . . the adjectives could go on forever.

Ricky Fitts dialogue about the small, beautiful parts of life ring true with this movie, because it’s all the small things that truly create a great and unique experience. Everything from the medium OTS shot of Mr. Fitts washing his car as the gay couple come jogging along, which he sees reflected off his car’s rear window to the small embrace Ricky gives his mother before he leaves his house forever created little ripples of emotion that I could feel throughout my entire body. The script is absolutely hilarious, from Kevin Spacey’s opening monologue, to the scene with him sitting in his chair playing with his remote control car and then thrusting his arm into the air exclaiming, “I rule!” and beyond, this film has plenty of moments to bring more than a smile to your face.

And then there are moments that make you feel the complete opposite. There are scenes that made my heart freeze and my stomach drop. When Ricky is filming his girlfriend through the window as she undresses, all seems to be going well until we hear the door get thrown open and a loud smash as Ricky’s father piles his fist into the side of his head. And who can forget the dinner meal, where all Lester wanted was some asparagus, and ended up throwing a plate against the wall? The one scene that did it the most for me (well, actually two, now that I think about it) would have to be when Ricky’s father confronts him about being homosexual, so he throws up his fists as if he’s ready to box his son, but his wrists are limp and he’s on the verge of breaking down and whimpers at his son to get out of his house. THAT almost made me bawl my eyes out. The last scene to do this also would be after the fatal ending, when we see the mother run up the staircase and into her bedroom closet, only to end up collapsing into her husband’s clothes and breaking down.

It truly goes to show that, perhaps, you truly don’t know anyone, unless if you’re really close to them. I’m not using the term “close” loosely here, as you could say that Ricky and his father were somewhat close, yet the father turned out to be a closet homosexual. You could say that Lester is somewhat close to his wife, but on what basis? Just because they are married? Everyone has something to hide behind their personal closed doors, and this is a staple theme in Mendes’ career, which he revisits with Revolutionary Road. I could say a lot more, but I can’t. Whenever I think about this movie there is just so much on my plate that it’s hard to choose where to begin, and when to switch to a new topic to give all of the wondrous parts of this movie an equal share of time since there is just so much going on. American Beauty is one of the most important contemporary films made to date, and truly opens your eyes to true beauty in your life.