What is it about American Beauty that so effectively launches the film to greatness?
Is it the stunning performances? The resounding successes of both a first-time writer and director? Or is it a rare melding of drama and comedy that is successful enough to make us laugh, cringe and cry in the same film? The answer? All of the above and none of the above.
Those qualities certainly don't hurt, but arguably the greatest asset of American Beauty is the fact that the situations it presents are so familiar to us all. Not necessarily in the sense of developing attractions to our teenage children's best friends, but in the omnipresence of internal discord - the underlying Yeatsian philosophy of things falling apart.
Its protagonist, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), is someone we all know at some level. He works for a magazine and lives in a nice house in a typical suburban community with his wife and daughter. Nine times out of 10, this would be considered a happy life, but here, as Lester's quick to alert us, it's all a facade. He's hit a dead-end in his career, his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) no longer truly loves him and his daughter Jane (Thora Birch) has grown to resent his very presence.
"In a way, I'm dead already," he says during the film's introduction, shortly before proceeding to masturbate during a shower. Desperate times, indeed, but things aren't much better for anyone else around him. His wife's real-estate career is also floundering. His ex-Marine new next-door neighbor (Chris Cooper) worries for his son's (Wes Bentley) well-being.
These sorts of things happen all the time around us, often without our knowing, often masked by a similar facade to that of the Burnhams. American Beauty takes them all together and makes them not just apparent to us, but indeed our focal point - rendering them all the more powerful. And give director Sam Mendes credit; he corrals an A-list cast perfectly so that their personae don't overwhelm each other, but instead all stay believable in their own right. (Not bad for a guy who'd only directed London theater before this.)
That's the first act.
In the second, the Burnham family takes a turn for the better. Carolyn raises her spirits by beginning an affair with one of her biggest real estate rivals (Peter Gallagher). Jane starts seeing the Marine's son. Out of darkness comes light, one might say.
And no one gets more light than Lester. After developing an unhealthy obsession with Jane's friend Angela (Mena Suvari), his whole life is transformed. He not only quits his job, but also threatens to blackmail his former bosses. He buys a vintage Pontiac Firebird. He starts working out regularly and, almost contradictorily, smoking weed again for the first time since college.
The family crisis still remains, but rather than a source of strain, it becomes a source of utter hilarity as Spacey plunges Lester into new depths of hilarity and ridicule. Lester's fantasies with Angela become more and more vivid, and his masturbation transitions to the bedroom, but Spacey's charisma through it all is astounding - enough to carry the whole movie on its back.
It's not just the effects that shock us, but the causes as well. As Lester transitions from pushover to rebel, we experience one of two phenomena: we either start to see ourselves in him or we start to wish we could. For those of us lucky enough to have developed his new level of vitality, the movie is a parallel to our own lives; for those of us who haven't, it's a kick-start.
This gives the movie a real sense of gusto, but also makes its conclusion all the more shocking. By the end, we don't just watch these characters; we feel them. American Beauty is truly excellent - a movie that finds triumph in tumult, one that covers the entire range of the emotional spectrum in doing so. Don't just watch this one; cherish it.
4 stars out of 4
No comments:
Post a Comment