What A Beauty
I just watched American Beauty for the first time since it opened in 1999. Back then it was a small, offbeat film, without big stars, but tremendous buzz, that turned into an international blockbuster, and won five Oscars, including best film.
There's been a bit of a backlash since then. Maybe not as bad as it is for Titanic, but a lot of people wonder what's the big deal? And I agree, there's a lot to criticize in this film. The film sometimes strains too hard to be poetic. Most of the adults are one-dimensional--especially the gay-hating military dad (who, of course, is a repressed homosexual) and his catatonic wife. It's got a cliched, beyond tiresome vision of sterile suburbia (does anyone anywhere listen to muzak while they eat dinner?). The plot has more coincidences than a French sex farce, plus some loose threads (even before I read the screenplay I could tell they were setting up the teen couple to be framed for murder, but that's completely dropped--actually, it's a good choice by director Sam Mendes, but it's still hanging out there). It also doesn't earn the death at the end which ties it all up--it's more a coincidence than a tragic inevitability.
Yet, there's something there. First, it's actually got some good gags, especially from Kevin Spacey, both as the sad sack and as the guy awakening (or regressing, some might say) to a new life. If nothing else, there's a decent 90-minute comedy trying to escape from this two-hour drama.
It's also got some good acting, especially by Spacey (who won an Oscar) and the teenagers (though I got a little tired of Wes Bentley, as Ricky Fitts, the drug-dealing psycho next door who sees through this world and speaks The Truth). And the script has some good observations of both teen and adult life.
There are also some touching moments, such as between Spacey and Annette Bening, Spacey and Mena Suvari, and Wes Bentley and Thora Birch.
The score sounds like a cliche today, partly because it's been copied a lot, but works pretty well. The cinematography by Conrad L. Hall deserved its Oscar. There are some memorable images (though I'll take the fantasy Mena Suvari over the windswept plastic bag). And the cheerleader's dance routine--choreographed by a pre-Idol Paula Abdul--is perfection.
Did it deserve the Best Picture Oscar? No. But Hollywood's done a lot worse.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:14 AM
4 Comments:
In the last school where I taught, at lunch, a language arts teacher informed a group of us that she had no plans to see American Beauty because she had heard that it was about a pedophile. After hearing that, I decided to go see it and loved it.
It is a comedy through and through. Each character is funnier or more absurd than the next. It fit into the style of many movies of the nineties where during the first half of the movie, characters appear a certain way, then either change or were actually someone different (maybe even the polar opposite) of what the viewer has thought all along. Certainly Mena Suvari and Chris Cooper are obvious, but all of the main characters go through major changes as to who they appear to be initially and who they are at the end of the movie.
Now, maybe it's no Sunset Boulevard, but it is an excellent movie.
-mikey in mich
Rating it against that year's competition, I think it was a defensible win. The Sixth Sense was fun but nothing special, Three Kings ditto, Summer of Sam was good but flawed, Eyes Wide Shut ditto, Magnolia ... umm, never saw it.
Here are some 1999 films I liked better than American Beauty: Being John Malkovich, The Limey, The Matrix, The Green Mile (I've written before how I like it better than Shawshank), Galaxy Quest, Topsy-Turvy, South Park. Here are films many others liked more: Fight Club, Boys Don't Cry, The Sixth Sense, Toy Story 2, Man On The Moon, Cider House Rules, Eyes Wide Shut, The Thin Red Line, The Blair Witch Project, The Insider, The Iron Giant, Office Space, The Straight Story, Three Kings.
Well, I was trying to limit myself to the nominees. Office Space and South Park were both that year? Hell, either one was far better. Speaking of better, I still haven't forgiven the Academy for robbing South Park for Best Original Score. That has to go down as one of the worst decisions in Academy Awards history.
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