American Beauty
DreamWorks SKG, 1999
Directed by Sam Mendes

$$$$

Films are seldom as satisfying as when they act as a catharsis. Remember how good it felt when Michael Douglas went postal on a fast food employee in the otherwise forgettable Falling Down? It was a great release of frustration for American suburbanites. The new film American Beauty provides the same kind of release on a much larger, deeper, more twistedly brilliant scale.

The film is narrated by Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey). As we begin, things are not going Les's way. His wife (Annette Bening) is cold and distant, his teenage daughter (Thora Birch) despises him and he's about to get fired from his job. But rather than accept things the way they are, he somehow summons the courage and ability to break free and do what actually pleases him. Like George Costanza in that great Seinfeld episode, Lester starts doing "the opposite". He starts smoking pot again for the first time since his youth. Instead of trying to save his job, he tells his bosses to go to hell and blackmails them for one year's salary with benefits. And, in the film's most sordid subplot, he starts hitting on his daughter's hot cheerleader best friend (Mena Suvari, the luscious choir girl from American Pie). It's the ultimate male fantasy.

Lester's liberation forms the focal point for a darkly funny satire of the American dream. Nearly every character in American Beauty is putting on some kind of facade. The Burnham's live in a seemingly ideal house, with an ideal white picket fence. But of course, their family is far from ideal of the old '50s sitcoms. Ironically, the film was shot on the same backlot street of facade houses where many of those old sitcoms were shot. Almost all of the characters that the Burnham's interact with are leading some kind of double life of their own. Director Sam Mendes, making his film debut, uses the recurring motif of a camera peering through windows -- it's his way of looking through the phony facade house to see what's really going on.

Mendes gets great work from his cast: Spacey is perfect, Bening gets to chew a ton of scenery, Birch and Suvari both give very brave, raw performances. But some of the most stunning acting is done by Wes Bentley, as Birch's boyfriend, who obsessively videotapes everything he sees in an effort to reach some sort of understanding of the world.

Similar to this year's Election, American Beauty gives us an insightful look at the dark, flip side of suburban life. It's one of the year's best.

(c) Copyright 1999