American Beauty
by Lovell Mahan-Moutaw

The Rain Storm

In 1997, Ang Lee showed us a portrait of sad, lonely and oftentimes stupid people and their familial and marital dysfunction in the 70s by giving us the plodding film, The Ice Storm. Now Sam Mendes and Dreamworks, SKG take that concept into the 90s and we have American Beauty.

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and Carolyn (Annette Bening) have a sham of a marriage. Lester is deeply unhappy with home and work life. Carolyn is driven to acquiring material possessions and displaying uptight behavior so extreme that, after viewing the film, my boyfriend finally considers himself lucky. Lester and Carolyn's daughter Jane (Thora Birch, who looks alarmingly like Christina Ricci in the opening scene, which only serves to stir up more bad The Ice Storm memories) dislikes her parents and finds them embarrassing. To make matters worse for Jane, her best friend Angela (Mena Suvari) is ridiculously self-centered and moronic.

New neighbors move into the house next door, and their bizarre but affecting son Ricky (Wes Bentley) manages to provide the impetus for rampant change in the Burnham household.

But, alas, Ricky has his own set of problems with a Dad, who is such a control freak that he is scary just to look at, but even scarier when the viewer wonders what he's going to do next, and a Mom that has totally checked out.

As depicted, these characters (outside of Jane and Ricky) are selfish and shallow and wallowing in a despair created only when someone lets their life run away from them and doesn't have the courage to say, "Well, hey, this isn't what I wanted for myself. Time for a cool change." The results in the film are traumatic and tragic and melodramatic. Usually, as I adore a good cry, this would be a delicious combination. Unfortunately, in American Beauty, it isn't.

In The Ice Storm, the kids were just as cracked as the parents. In American Beauty, Jane and Ricky seem to have their heads on straight while the adults meander about helplessly enslaved to their own neuroses and mid-life crises. Nevertheless, Ricky and Jane, no matter how they want to keep the idiocy of their parents away from them, cannot - because, unfortunately, they are just kids.

This film, according to the big cardboard stand outside the theater, is supposed to be a social commentary. I believe the cardboard stand even said, "In the wake of the Columbine tragedy..." and I'm positive it noted that after Bening saw the film she was "...overcome by tears."

The point of this film is that today's parents are selfish and shallow and neurotic and materialistic and kids are affected by it. Parents are angry because they didn't follow their dreams. Parents have too much responsibility to the Mercedes mini-vans and $4,000 Italian silk couches. Mid-life crisis sucks. Parents don't want to be this way. They actually love their kids but don't really know what to do with them.

All I can say to that is, duh.

These cripplingly sad films about the problem don't really do it for me. Walking out nodding my head and being moved by the art of life isn't entertainment and it certainly isn't enlightening.

What do I suggest as an alternative? I have none. The good thing about American Beauty is that Spacey has some humorous lines and that Wes Bentley is a remarkably intense actor. The comic relief heightens the movie-going experience of American Beauty above the mind-numbing boredom of The Ice Storm, if only slightly.

I do believe the medium of film should be used in part to be a sign of the times ... not only to show the good, but also to show the bad. I do believe that in certain instances it should be less melodrama and more real life. I believe that it is a challenge for a writer, director and actor to be able to depict "real life" in a film. For me, American Beauty didn't succeed. The characters had few redeeming values, the point of the plot was too obvious and the film as a whole was trying to be too arty.

But worse than all that is that it was done before, in The Ice Storm. They say there is no originality and, if I hadn't seen Run Lola Run, I would begin to believe it.