"...I am forty-two years old and I have less than a year to live, I just don't know it yet."
So begins the film American Beauty, by far one of the best films I have ever had the
privilege to see.
Put simply, it is about the life of a small and quite successful middle-class suburban family
in Anytown America. It's more than that, though. Much, much, much more. And yet, to even
attempt to explain it would be to do this film an injustice... so please forgive me for trying.
But first, as always, a brief synopsis.
Kevin Spacey plays the main character, a man who is living an empty life. He is also the one
narrating the film during Act changes (you can visibly seperate this film into three or four
acts). One of the opening scenes has a view of him from behind in the shower masturbating, as
he says to the viewer: "Look at me, masturbating in the shower. This is the high point of my
day. It's all downhill from here." This illustrates how truly empty and sad Spacey's character
truly is. We're never quite certain what his job is, but we know he works for a magazine of some
kind, and he also hates it there.
Enter his wife, played by Anette Bening. She is a real-estate agent. She tries to exude an air
of success, but doesn't quite succeed at this. We are shown the woman at work as she prepares
a house for viewing: She cleans it up, she arranges everything, she shows the prospective buyers
around... and she fails. In a telling scene she begins to cry about this, but slaps herself,
telling herself to stop crying, telling herself that it's a weakness. She has been brainwashed
by that myth which had been told to men for quite some time now.
And then there is the daughter, a young high-school girl. I think it's safe to assume that she
suffers self-esteem problems. Her relationship with her parents is simply horrible, but it's
hinted that it didn't use to be like that (Spacey asks her, "What happened to us? We used to
be buds."). She is embarassed by her father, and her mother is nothing too great either (after
a basketball game where her daughter is cheerleading, she says to her, "You were great! You didn't
screw up once!"). Her best friend is a blonde girl who brags about her sexual escapades.
The entire family is distant from eachother. No one is growing spiritually. Each is stuck in
a rut that they are finding it impossible to get out of... until someone enters each of their
lives.
The instigator of change is different for each of them. For Spacey it is when he sees his daugher's
friend for the first time. He sees something beautiful, and he decides that he wants it. For
Bening it is a rival real-estate agent. And for their daughter it is the strange teenage boy who
just moved in nextdoor. Changes occur in all of these characters as they affect each other.
Spacey becomes more vibrant and alive as he works out and starts smoking pot and listening to
music he hadn't listened to since he was a kid (provided by said boy next door). He soon quits
his job (likely one of the funniest scenes in the film). By the last third of the film he is the
complete opposite of how he was in the beginning.
That is only looking at the surface of the film, though. There are messages by the rose-petal in
it. One of which is the denouncement of material gain and success. What's the point of these
things, the movie asks, if you're not happy when you have them. "They're things," Spacey lashes
out at one point, "Just things!"
The subject of beauty is also looked at. I won't go deeply into it, but the rose is a prevalent
symbol in this film. What does it stand for? I've asked a couple of people. One thinks it stands
for the everyday beauty that we all take for granted. The movie tells us that beauty is everywhere,
one simply must know where to look for it.
This is a fabulous, fabulous film. The acting is superb, the writing is amazing, and the overall
execution is stunning. It's a beautiful film which succeeds in being touching, poignant, and funny
sometimes all at the same time. It's a satire of North American society, one that touches the heart.