Kevin Spacey
American Beauty
American Beauty (1999)
Reviewed by Mike Attebery
“Both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic loser, and they're right. I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn't always feel this... sedated. But you know what? It's never too late to get it back.” – Lester Burnham
This movie’s been given a lot of undeserved guff.
Yeah, it’s got the plastic bag. The moody guy in the hat. All that stuff that people like to use for easy ‘Scary Movie’ punch lines and Saturday Night Live skits, but the reason those references have proven such juicy fodder for mockery is that the movie succeeded so phenomenally on so many levels.
I seem to go through a phase every three years or so where I blink, look around, and go, “My God! I’m in a rut. I’m trudging through misery, eating handfuls of unhappiness, and in need of exercise, sunlight, and a major attitude change.” When this movie came out, I had just finished my latest “rehab,” and was doing my best to keep on track and get serious about my writing, my filmmaking, and my life. As a recovering film geek, life came first. So the story of Lester Burnham really hit home for me. I related. I could see where he was coming from, and I was trying to keep on the road to where Lester himself was going. Lester Burnham turned to pot, running, and lustful fantasy for his inspiration. I suppose I turned to White Russians, exercise, and a social life for mine. When I saw this movie I was happy. Since by the end, Kevin Spacey’s character was utterly content, his ultimate fate never struck me as a tragedy. It seemed like the perfect way to go.
This is a story about the ways in which people lose themselves. Whether it be to their dreams, their careers, the ideas of wealth and success, or just through simple isolation and misery. Every character is struggling with a one of these issues, either despairing at what they’ve lost, the chances they didn’t take, the things they thought would make them happy, or the desires they feel but cannot bring themselves to act upon. Every natural tendency has been sublimated into something else. The cubicle slave. The real estate assertiveness training nightmare. The Nazi fetishist. The misguided plastic surgery believer. None of the misplaced interests are dealing with the characters’ real problems, and in some cases, they are simply feeding dark secrets that will bring everything crashing down around them. Throughout it all, the one person whose thoughts we know entirely, is Lester. He’s narrating the film, letting us in with smiles and twinkles in his eye, and as he comes alive, we the audience come alive too, along for the same ride. Lester is like the teenager who’s suddenly realized that rebelling against society gives him a charge, and in his case, rebelling against society will save his life, albeit it ever so briefly. A fixed period of happiness is better than a limitless stretch of despair.
I like this movie. I love the characters. When it came out it felt like a secret. Then people caught on and it won Best Picture. Then it became a bit of a joke.
Maybe people have forgotten it now, and it will feel like a secret again. Either way, it’s time to give it a shot again. Pick up your copy here.