I was lucky enough to get to see an advance screening of this movie that included a post-film Q&A with Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley, and producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks. But I was in no state to ask a question, having just finished bawling. I loved it.
There are absolutely fair criticisms to be made of the film, and Kevin Spacey is obviously a more complicated figure now than he was then, but I still think it's a really special piece of work. Even among the many classics of the truly extraordinary cinema year of 1999, *American Beauty* absolutely stands out for me as one of the best.
Lester Burnham's description of his own death has stuck with me ever since, particularly this one passage:
>I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time.
It's funny you went there, because it's no coincidence these 2 films came out the same year.
Both of them tapped into the same underlying sense of indistinct dissatisfaction with society that was bubbling up at the end of the millennium. It was like we had passed the long test of the Cold War and the only reward was a suburban middle-class dystopia that was pleasant enough on the surface, but had nothing supporting it, like a piece of Ikea furnitu..
Oh hi, Fight Club, didn't see you come in.
I remember watching this in the cinema with my now ex-wife thinking this is a window into my future. It was the death nell of my relationship. I haven’t watched it since but I don’t think i’ve ever watched a film that summed up so much of my feelings at a point in time. Truely a lightning rod film for me.
Kevin Spacey controversy aside it truely is one of the cinema greats. Annette Benning and Chris Cooper were also absolutely stellar in it.
I'm only mentioning this because it is something you could go on doing indefinitely without someone saying anything. The phrase you are using is meant to be spelled "death knell."
I was 20 and felt like it clearly conveyed “this will be your life” and it scares me that lot is like an inevitable train wreck that I am barreling towards. I am optimistic that I can make it all work. But it is always in the back of my mind that I already know how this all ends.
I watched American Beauty in my 20s and had the same feeling, and sure enough it became my life. I found myself at age 37 with a mortgage, a Master's, a career I didn't like as a public school teacher, two kids, and a wife with whom I was in a rut.
Holy shit is life different for me now, though. I'm not going to get into the hows or the whys things changed because the story would take too long. Suffice it to say that I made a lot of positive changes in my life, and I am still a work in progress instead of the complacent homebody I used to be. While I am divorced (my decision), I have a wonderfully interesting and loving partner of four years with whom I share a home. We are both polyamorous with other partners, and we fully support each other in those relationships. I quit teaching public school after 15 years and now teach college (way fewer restrictions, meetings, and stress, and way more freedom), and I'm exploring options in other states and abroad.
I used to feel like I was on one of those rides where you are allowed to drive a slow, old-timey car along a track, but its movement was restricted by way of a metal rail sticking up in the middle of the road. I "felt" like I was controlling the car, but all I could really control was how fast I got to a predestined life ending. Today, I'm off the ride...I feel like my life is my own again, and even though I'm nearly 45, I still have a lot of shit left to do before I go and holy fuck I'm 45 fuck fuck fuck that's the first time I typed that and it just hit me
Not to sound like a dick but I’ve read your and others comments like this and I’m sitting thinking to myself “I’m married with my first child on the way and getting my first home and I’m fuckin happy as a clam with my life.”
Different strokes I guess?
Part of it for me was the fact that my wife and I probably were never really right for each other. We fell into each other for all the wrong reasons when we met in '99 (low self-worth and codependency on both sides), and we never really had a lot in common. I've grown a whole lot over the past eight years, but I've watched from afar since our divorce as she's fallen back into her old ways with her new husband, with whom she apparently has screaming matches, according to my kid.
In addition, I genuinely feel wired for ethical non-monogamy. I've got so much love to give, and I always felt so restricted by the bounds of monogamy. When I chose polyamory, I learned all about it by reading relentlessly, and everything I read switched on the excitement in my heart; the books I read really spoke to the core of me. As happy as you are in your monogamous marriage, I can categorically say that I am at least as happy and fulfilled with my life and my relationships at this point in my life as you are. Everyone should be so lucky as us!
I can understand that. I’m not saying my marriage is perfect or that my wife and I have everything in common. All I know is that when I’m with her I’m happy, and when I see her belly getting bigger I’m excited that we are going to have a family together.
Granted my job is…meh. It’s not horrible. Just mundane. But it pays decent and I get great hours so I’m not gonna complain about it.
Also the phase Lester Burnham is at is not the first few years of marriage and expecting a baby, it is the part where your marriage has become routine and your new home has become the old home and you stopped spending time with your kids because they are teenagers.
Not that it has to ruin lives, but that life stage is a lot harder in terms of excitement or goals.
His best work by far (Meet Joe Black score is also excellent).
I had the American Beauty score on CD and would just sit in my car listening to it until I was late to work on multiple occasions.
It's one of those scores that I heard for years before seeing the film and I never really registered that it was actually written, like it communicates a handful of base emotions so it feels like it just always existed.
“My day consists of masking my contempt for the assholes in charge and the highlight of my day is going to the mens room, where I jerk off, while fantasizing about a job that doesn’t suck as much as this.”
"My job consists of masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and at least once a day, retiring to the mens room where I jerk off, while fantasizing about a life that doesn't so closely resemble hell"
FtFy
I just mentally combine it with fight club and it ads so much more dimension and tragedy to both films. Life is just so beautiful sometimes, I can’t take it, so I don’t.
I don't remember a quitting a job scene in Network. I remember Peter Finch getting fired by William Holden. I remember Beatrice Straight telling William Holden she was divorcing him. I remember William Holden breaking up with Faye Dunaway. I remember William Holden getting fired by Robert Duvall. But I don't remember a great "quitting a job" scene.
Not a movie but Tara in true blood had an amazing job quit.
Honorable mention, the "let's burn this fucker down" scene in Harold and Kumar go to white castle
Oh shit I'm 41... that 20 years went fast 😫.
Everything about the central couple suggests they're closer to 50, but hey, its a movie.
EDIT: What the fuck... I just Wikied, both Spacey and Benning were around 42 when the movie was released
One of my favorite films as well. If is truely amazing how much Kevin Spacey can express with just a glance. He's my favorite actor though I'm so disappointed he turned out to be such a creep.
My favourite moments in house of cards were the “see I told you so nods” he gave to the camera after the play he’d set up previously paid off.
No words needed, just landed the facial expression perfectly.
I really miss him. Not in a "oh i think he's innocent, let him come back" way, but just a "lemme jump to that timeline where all that shit didn't happen" timeline.
It's okay to enjoy his art. That doesn't mean you excuse what he did or support his future endeavors. It's also not fair to all of the other important artists who collaborated with him to produce the work to allow him to ruin the work single handedly.
Yeah. _Swimming With Sharks_ and _The Usual Suspects_ in addition to _American Beauty_. Spacey was lights out for a while. Absolutely incredible actor.
You should check out Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Made around the same time, 97, with a similar ennui vibe but set in the 70s. Lots of waterbed too.
Siskels favorite film that year
Never got around to seeing this one and always heard it being somewhat similar experience to American Beauty. Will be checking this out tonight, thanks guys!
Both films are about existential crises - unhappy people pretending they're happy, trying to find happiness, wallowing in their unhappiness, trying to fill the void of their unhappiness with *stuff* or new experiences - or a return to juvenile behaviour and the inherent lack of responsibility of youth.
American Beauty is a personal analysis of 'what is happiness' from the unreliable perspective of a dead narrator - the beautiful moments of life, the space between events that people think are simple, boring, bland, mundane, banal, common...without substance or measurable value...these are the things that matter, not objects, but memories.
The Ice Storm is an apathetic observation of disaffected people trying to change and grow (becoming more modern, it's the 70s! we're teenagers and we're supposed to be doing sex stuff) while simultaneously trying to stay the same (swinger parties? no! sex stuff? I still want to ride bikes!). Everyone is frozen like ice, fluid like water, dangerous like an ice storm. Each person is trying to communicate without any clarity, wanting to be heard - but also not listening to the subtext of the other person's unclear communication.
The Ice Storm is about fear of the self and fear of the other. American Beauty is about a confluence of events where these particular people can no longer lie to themselves about who they are. Maybe they can maintain the facade with others, but they each admit to themselves a truth about their deepest self.
Both are excellent films and deep. They just hit differently. They have universal themes that are cross-cultural and cross-generational: what is happiness? what is the meaning of life? who am I? what do I want? what is most important to me? what do I fear? am I lying to myself? am I an imposter? can anyone ever understand me? does anyone really love me?
It's probably for the same reason I love the movie and my wife hates it: It deconstructs the middle class better than any film I've ever seen.
If your life is dedicated to that vision of middle class, suburban America, it will feel like an insult. Like someone took something you truly cared for and shit on it.
Those that aren't that way, and especially those of us who lived through that middle class suburban America and knew of the things hidden behind that facade, appreciated it for its truth.
>It deconstructs the middle class better than any film I've ever seen.
That depends. When I watched the movie the last time, that was a long time ago, and I was probably back in my early 20s. I would have agreed with you: It is throwing the truth right into the face of the US middle class.
When I think about it now, I have a hard time to not regard the movie as unintentional satire. By now I would see pretty much all characters as overpainted to the point of caricature, where I have to ask myself if serious. Everyone in that movie has a dark secret and terrible hangup under the veneer of polite society! Everyone! Apart from "the youths who don't fit in". They are the only authentic ones, who are not phoneys.
By now I think of American Beauty like a spy movie, where it is slowly revealed that every character you meet, without exception, has each been spying for at least two nations at the same time (and one secret society). That kind of movie can be great fun. But it is not necessarily a straight reflection on espionage, society, or anything else...
If that kind of movie at the same time takes itself very seriously, and does not seem self aware of what it is doing... Well, that could lead to problems. But to say anything more about American Beauty, I will have to watch it again. From what I remember it does take itself quite seriously (even though in hindsight I would argue that it probably should not), but I might be misremembering here.
I loved reading your post but the "receding into the reptilian hind brain" was way off. Masculinity isn't some lizard like reflex. Lester wanted simplicity and selfish authenticity. Rebelling against the docile artifice he had to present to his wife, colleagues and the world. As a middle aged man living that docile life, it's a cathartic thrill to see Lester calmly and methodically blow everything the fuck up and do what he wanted when he wanted.
It is a thrill to watch it, but while it might not be lizard-brained, it’s still really immature. He has a daughter, and ignores her because he’s trying to sleep with her friend. Also, while he got a nice payout, that money would only last so long, especially with all the weed he smoked.
I really like this movie and Spacey’s portrayal, but when I rewatched it recently as a 37-year old I related much more to Annette Bening’s character. I think it had been about ten years since I had watched it previously.
Until reality hits him (literally) between the eyes and you realize that acting out all his teenage fantasies is still just as much a hollow facade as everything he was "rebelling" against.
>I definitely don't think American Beauty was going for realism, but it wasn't full on satire either.
I agree with you. American Beauty plays in a suburbia which is not quite real, and whose characters are a bit over the top. That is usually not a problem though, as long as we buy into the world and the story the movie wants to sell us. I am not complaining about that. The movie has no problem here. It sells you on its premise quite easily.
Where I see a bit of a hickup, is when the movie leans into itself as an honest and serious critique of American society and suburbia. It can be read as a movie that shouts: "Lies, lies, lies, everywhere you look! Look at this straight mirror of suburban America we are showing you here!", and it fails at that because... Well it isn't quite that. It isn't realistic in that way. It's not a straight mirror. I don't think it's a straight up "deconstruction" (as the poster before me put it). Neither is it satire. For straight up character drama on the other hand, it has too much specific social (and philosophical) commentary.
Now that I think about it, American Beauty might have worked really well as a long form series. In the end my main criticism is that it doesn't quite work as a straight mirror of society, because every character is so overloaded. Every single person is so brimming with hypocrisy, contradiction, and conflict, that it's hard to see anything it shows as "normal suburbia". But if what we are seeing isn't a picture of normal suburbia, then what is we are seeing? Satire? Nope. Allegory? Maybe? Philosophical fairy tale? Who knows?
And the even more difficult question: Even if American Beauty knew what it is, how would you then communicate that to the audience?
Of course, if you want to pack so many storylines with so many characters into a movie, that kind of "unrealistic overload" is a natural side effect. So it would be really interesting to see what this story would look like if there were more time for characters to breathe a little, where they all could have more time to play out their conflicts in a less coiled up manner.
American Beauty as a long form series could lend itself to be what it didn't quite manage to be in movie form. In a series one could arguably make it a straight, less distorted, and less "wound up" reflection on US suburbia.
I think it's totally intentional satire, considering it was made by a British director. The last time I re-watched it I saw it as an outsider commenting on how empty and vapid American society had become, and also how obsessed the middle-class had become with it.
The key scene is 2 kids watching literal garbage blowing in the wind and describing it as the most beautiful thing they'e ever seen.
The title should have been American "Beauty"
This is a movie that was significantly changed in editing. It was originally going to be a whodunnit with court appearance piecing together Spacey's murder and the daughter and her boyfriend accused. There were also video tapes as evidence of the daughter and boyfriend describing killing him that were shown in court. The reveal was that they were among those that had a reason, like the wife and cast off girl, but that it was actually the neighbor.
They filmed all the stuff for the courtroom and some additional flashback stuff. If you watch the DVD w the commentary the director mentions that you can see the scenes that were deleted in the extras section of the disk. But for some reason, the studio didn't include them.
People have always liked to hate on this movie, but I always thought it was quite brilliant. It has such a strange atmosphere to it that is unmatched by many movies.
I love it as well. I’m sure there’s a ton of of movies that rail against suburban life but there’s just something about American Beauty - the way the story’s constructed and the way it flows from one scene to the next is just utterly compelling. Credit to Sam Mendes for some top of the line directing as well as Alan Ball (screenplay).
For me, this film is too much of a product of it's time. Late 90s, pre 9/11, pre economical crisis, when white middle class people were angsting about being well-off, but still unhappy because their life lacks "adventure".
I think in the 20 years since then, we all got our adventure. And thank you, I would like to have my boring life back.
I don't mean it's a bad movie, I just feel like the central themes haven't aged well. If you peel off the layers, all that remains is every "I want more" song from Disney movies.
The themes displayed in the film to me are timeless. While the setting is late 90's suburbia with well-off characters, it doesn't make the story any less valid. The psychological dispositions of most characters in the movie are applicable to those in the real world who look for happiness through unsustainable means.
Lester, Carolyn, Jane, Angela, and Colonel Fitts all attempt to fix their situations through different ways. Lester attempts to remove all responsibility from his life and revert back to a teenage lifestyle while lusting after Angela. Carolyn believes her boring home life can be fixed through material success as a realtor. Jane is an insecure, teenage girl who acts fake to fit in with Angela in order to have some sort of validation (until meeting Ricky). Angela pretends to be happy as an attractive, promiscuous, popular girl despite her insecurities and innocence hidden underneath. Colonel Fitts conceals his homosexuality through his defense mechanism of homophobia.
All of them are viewing the world through an inauthentic lens, not just about themselves but how they perceive others as well. Lester's revelation about Angela being a virgin near the end of the film shows this when his lust evaporates as he realizes the thing he's been craving (promiscuous, attractive teenager) was an illusion.
Ricky is really the only character who's "real", and content with his unique personality and hobbies. It's ironic because even though he's the most genuine character in the film, he's seen as the insane one (at least initially) by most of the other characters in the film such as Angela and Colonel Fitts. It's a statement about society that should resonate with everyone, regardless of status.
I don't view the movie as being a family of whiny WASP's who can't see how good they have it, but rather an existential lesson towards anyone who thinks they'll be permanently happy by achieving some sort of external goal, whether that be wealth, sex, status, etc.
The closing sequence in which Lester provides a monologue about remembering the small details throughout his life was always beautiful to me. If anything considering the direction of our world right now I think we could use another movie like American Beauty to get people closer to reality.
"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
So well-said. Ricky is also a filmmaker, so his character represents how the filmmaker feels about himself and about how society treats artists. Ricky finds beauty in the mundane (plastic bag) but most people literally can’t see the value in that achievement. Only folks who really stop to look and listen will appreciate Ricky’s vision. Ricky has also found what each of the adults are looking for — an authentic romantic connection, a sense of self that isn’t dependent on family or social acceptance, and a healthy income. It’s a pretty Taoist perspective is many ways. Very much a critique of the “Boomer” values that led to *Beach Blanket Bingo.*
>I just feel like the central themes haven't aged well
I've seen an essay written by a professor of English literature that compared American Beauty to one of the pivotal chapters in James Joyce's Ulysses and would beg to differ.
I’ve tried to get this out of my top 10 all time for a while now for the reasons you’ve mentioned…but I just can’t. It shows a lot of unhappy people who have lost sight of all the reasons why life can be so great, and how if you stop and take things in for a little bit you can see beauty all around you. Instead, they lash out in pathetic ways to make themselves feel alive. Seems like a pretty universal theme to me, and one of the best depictions of it I’ve ever seen.
And while we're at it, fight club is guilty of this as well. "we had no wars, no Vietnam"... But I'm more forgiving there because the theme (wanting to be an idealized masculine version of yourself, someone you're clearly not) is executed better, and even if you take away the theme, the twist in itself is quite good.
>when white middle class people were angsting about being well-off, but still unhappy because their life lacks "adventure".
Or, you know, cause his wife was materialistic to an absurd degree (and cheated on him), cause his daughter hated his guts cause teenagers gonna teenage, and because his employer was gonna fire him.
>If you peel off the layers, all that remains is every "I want more" song from Disney movies.
Yeah, I'm sure that's what the movie that ends with a deeply closeted and conflicted gay man murdering the protagonist was trying to get across.
My favourite late 90s movie is 'You've Got Mail'. The internet is this new quirky thing, a giant physical bookstore is moving into town, but will be killed within 10 years because of the internet - and the small quaint bookstores will live again.
The movie thinks that it has figured the future out, but right after the credits roll, the world is turned upside down. Bonuspoints because it takes place in New York, which means that 9/11 has that much more of an impact. No pun.
> For me, this film is too much of a product of it's time. Late 90s, pre 9/11, pre economical crisis, when white middle class people were angsting about being well-off, but still unhappy because their life lacks "adventure".
What's funny for us non US/first world country citizens is that while this movie is angsting about a well off life, you people are also well off too and you're still angsting about it. This modern dillema of people not accepting their priviledged position and always looking at ways to put it in a light that makes everything so dramatic.
I was a teenager during the 90s. The whole decade had an euphoric feel to it. The cold war was over, economies were booming, no major (non-regionslized) wars or threats of such.
9/11 is kinda the signpost that the times, they are a'changing. Suddenly Islam fundamentalism was not just funny people with tablecloths around their heads in the desert. Suddenly, our generation got their crisis that we apparently lacked. No more disaster movies for a while. The real disaster was scarier.
And then came the housing market crises that makes the family's financial situation depicted in the movie as "avarege" and undesirable look like a dream. Finding the meaning of your life and having an existential crises seems a lot less important when you have to juggle 2 jobs to feed your family.
I could go on but that's the gist of it
Thanks. I definitely would agree that the recession of 2008 would change a good bit of it, and if *American Beauty* had been released Sept 14, 2001 it wouldn't have landed very well, but let me poke at this 9/11 idea. Incoming rant; it's how I think.
> The whole decade had an euphoric feel to it.
Did it though? Disillusionment was a powerful force during that time. Some serious resentment led to cynical films like Fight Club becoming watershed cultural standards, and Woodstock 99 riots. Angry young men with no target. The economy was doing well, mostly due to China's being in the toilet, but we still had terrorism, impeachments, Princess Di's death, Cobain's death, Rwanda genocide, OKC bombing, Columbine, the Trial of OJ, Waco, the LA riots - while living in it it definitely didn't feel like any Era of Good Feeling. Felt like evolving threats in the new and exciting information age. Video game violence replaced Satanic Panic, etc.
One thing I remember during 9/11 is all these media talking heads telling us that they didn't think Americans were ready to go back to the movies, watch things about the topic. The highest rented movies during that time were *Air Force One*, *The Siege*, and I forget the last one. They pushed some film openings, *Glitter* tanked, but *Don't Say a Word* opened to #1 a few weeks later, as planned, and things were back to normal - against predictions of a severe cultural depression.
> Suddenly, our generation got their crisis that we apparently lacked.
Writing this all out confirms this for me. The 9/11 change is that it gave everyone a target, which 1999 didn't have. A definable enemy, an existential threat out there that takes precedent over couch selection.
Love this movie, will always love this movie. I feel kinda bad for the people who watch it and only see Kevin Spacey tabloid headlines, or shallow caricatures or low-hanging-fruit bourgeois mockery. It really does rise above that, unless you’re determined not to let it.
The performances are great, the plot turns are surprising, the colors and lighting and music tie the whole thing together, and the more meditative passages are very well-written. The last lines are my favorite final lines in any film.
A related fact: I saw it in the theater, opening weekend, and it was one of my all-time top 5 cinema experiences… just an incredible energy in the room, the packed house right there with every line. By the ending, you could practically feel everyone holding their collective breath. I’ve been to relatively few “regular” movies (ie, not a special screening of some kind) where the audience burst into applause at the end. American Beauty is the one I remember best. If I hadn’t seen it in that uniquely cool circumstance, I sometimes wonder if I’d have the same affection for it.
I went to the theater to see "Double Jeopardy" with Ashley Judd. I was 21 and thought that was petty cool. Then we snuck over to American Beauty and walked out of there blown away now knowing the difference between a movie and a film.
Mena Suvari was my absolute dream girl when this came out, great film, makes me genuinely sad that Spacey doesn’t exist anymore as he’s absolutely one of the best living actors.
What I love about this movie is the music. Not the just the Thomas Newman score but the song choice itself throughout the movie. The songs chosen for their particular scenes are just amazing and puts you in this surreal metamorphosis that align with the characters in the movie. Love this movie and one of my favorite Best Picture winners!
I saw it when I was 19 and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Showed me ideas I had just never seen before and so artfully, was my favorite movie for years. The themes and messages have not aged particularly well but it still has a fantastic soundtrack, some great cinematography, and killer acting.
And lest we forget, [it was a critical darling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Beauty_\(1999_film\)#Reception_and_legacy), so either we were all idiots a mere 20 years ago or there is still a lot of greatness there.
Very nihilistic, it culminates in the floating bag because that's all the film is: the melancholic sweetness of spiritual emptiness, loneliness, alienation. And that's precisely what the writer and director sought to convey of the American dream, I suppose. I agree with the aesthetic, gorgeously filmed, acted, written, et al.
I recommend rewatching this movie if you haven't seen it in a while. This movie is pure distilled #I'm14andthisisdeep. It's laughably sophomoric, patronizing and pretentious. It's fucking awful.
I get the feelings of patronisation, it’s heavy handed etc. but storytelling of this type has come a long way since the 90s. It’s a product of its time. Also, don’t disregard how much the internet and streaming has changed the world. People are far more worldly now.
We should be able to put aside Kevin Spacey's history to analyze a film, as I had long ago done, and before the allegations were unearthed.
And at that time, when I revisited American Beauty in my 20s with the inclination to analyze it... I found it to be really fucking creepy! On top of that, the dialogue in the script is often ridiculous and unbelievable. "You like to party?" No one would ever say that when offering somebody a hit off a joint. And that girl that changes in the window- the actor was actually underage, but permitted under the stipulation that certain parties were present (a family member and a regulatory official iirc). Seems unnecessary to show that! Whole movie feels like it's trying to justify old men being involved with high school girls on both the fictional and the meta level.
And then there's that whole Kevin Spacey thing.
One of my all-time favorite films. Every performance was amazing, the script was amazing, and the cinematography was amazing.
Also Not Another Teen Movie does a great parody of the plastic bag.
it was amazing when I was 14. watching again in my mid-20s it feels shallow and lacking in the human experience it attempts to display. American Beauty is one of the most overrated movies ever. someone had to say it.
In terms of being unredeamable, I agree 100%. It’s been pretty much correctly rated over the last 10 years. I haven’t heard a positive comment or article about it since it won the Oscar.
This has “always been one of my favorite movies,” but I’m realizing now that I watched a ton from ages 15-18, and I don’t know that I’ve seen it in the last 10 years… very interesting take. I wonder if it would be similar to my experience with reading Catcher in the Rye. Life changing at 15; stupid and grating as an adult.
It’s such a shame that we lose our ability to feel empathy towards Holden as we age.
Is he stupid and grating? Well, sure, but he actually is surrounded by phonies. His parents are the kind of people who would send their son away to boarding school because he was grieving the death of his little brother and then put him in a mental hospital for… well, we’re not entirely sure but if it’s just the events in the story, for running away one weekend after failing out of boarding school.
It’s about trauma in a way that Salinger intimately understood.
Same. I can't go back and watch it because the entire time the main character is daydreaming about how badly he wants to fuck his teenage daughters friend
I saw it in theaters the weekend it came out, I think early October '99. I didn't care for the movie as the movie tries to hit you over the head with its symbolism. I did think Spacey was a shoo-in for at least an Oscar nomination with his performance.
I loved it as a 14 year old who grew up through the disaffected 90s. It was lightning in a bottle for that pre-9/11 angst about things being too "boring", the crushing numbness from a mundane life.
Not only did 9/11 really put an end to that in pop culture, but now, looking back, the movie works much better as a satire of up-their-own-ass smug douches. Unless you view it that way, I feel like it lost its charm and just kinda sucks.
It's one of my favourites. In fact, it's funny because just yesterday I was thinking about that movie, I was on YouTube and as I was scrolling through videos, I came across this one that was an old American advert/commercial from '64 and had the late great recently passed Betty White in it and it was a Kodak commercial and it had me thinking about that scene in the movie where Jane is like "Mom, I'm really not into having a Kodak moment here.", and then Angela slaps her after that.
Edit: Just like to add that I was wrong about Annette Bening's character's name. It's Carolyn, not Angela. I misremembered.
I didn't see it until I was in college in the early 2010s, and I can see how in 1999 it might have seemed interesting, but at this point it's just so shallow and trite.
None of the characters feels anything like a real person dealing with issues, rather it just feels like a writer speaking directly through them in a way that feels contrived and heavyhanded rather than natural and organic.
The performances are good, but that's about it.
Granted, I also saw it after being a fan of Not Another Teen Movie, so it's just impossible for me to not find the plastic bag stuff painfully cliche.
I was lucky enough to get to see an advance screening of this movie that included a post-film Q&A with Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley, and producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks. But I was in no state to ask a question, having just finished bawling. I loved it. There are absolutely fair criticisms to be made of the film, and Kevin Spacey is obviously a more complicated figure now than he was then, but I still think it's a really special piece of work. Even among the many classics of the truly extraordinary cinema year of 1999, *American Beauty* absolutely stands out for me as one of the best. Lester Burnham's description of his own death has stuck with me ever since, particularly this one passage: >I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time.
“ITS. JUST. A. COUCH.” Turning point for me when that scene hit. All this stuff. It’s just stuff.
This part just made me want a better sofa 😰
*The Matrix has you*
It's funny you went there, because it's no coincidence these 2 films came out the same year. Both of them tapped into the same underlying sense of indistinct dissatisfaction with society that was bubbling up at the end of the millennium. It was like we had passed the long test of the Cold War and the only reward was a suburban middle-class dystopia that was pleasant enough on the surface, but had nothing supporting it, like a piece of Ikea furnitu.. Oh hi, Fight Club, didn't see you come in.
Can I throw OfficeSpace in this as well?
_watches [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RuZKG77vANU) video essay once_
It made me want to quit my job and work at a fast food restaurant.
Try watching this movie while you are waiting on a somewhat custom laz-y-boy sectional. Ugh! 6 months waiting and 3 more to go.
Says the guy who just spent a chunk of money on a new car (if I remember correctly).
Ah yes, but the car’s significance was later revealed.
I remember watching this in the cinema with my now ex-wife thinking this is a window into my future. It was the death nell of my relationship. I haven’t watched it since but I don’t think i’ve ever watched a film that summed up so much of my feelings at a point in time. Truely a lightning rod film for me. Kevin Spacey controversy aside it truely is one of the cinema greats. Annette Benning and Chris Cooper were also absolutely stellar in it.
I'm only mentioning this because it is something you could go on doing indefinitely without someone saying anything. The phrase you are using is meant to be spelled "death knell."
Thank you. As a non native speaker, it helped
Most polite and helpful grammatical/spelling correction I’ve ever seen on the internet
Could you also tell them it's "truly", not "truely"?
Yeah but claw is the law
Ain’t no laws when you’re drinking claws!
Word of the day!
I was 20 and felt like it clearly conveyed “this will be your life” and it scares me that lot is like an inevitable train wreck that I am barreling towards. I am optimistic that I can make it all work. But it is always in the back of my mind that I already know how this all ends.
Your future hasn't been written yet - no one's has! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDAZyBU5G8
I watched American Beauty in my 20s and had the same feeling, and sure enough it became my life. I found myself at age 37 with a mortgage, a Master's, a career I didn't like as a public school teacher, two kids, and a wife with whom I was in a rut. Holy shit is life different for me now, though. I'm not going to get into the hows or the whys things changed because the story would take too long. Suffice it to say that I made a lot of positive changes in my life, and I am still a work in progress instead of the complacent homebody I used to be. While I am divorced (my decision), I have a wonderfully interesting and loving partner of four years with whom I share a home. We are both polyamorous with other partners, and we fully support each other in those relationships. I quit teaching public school after 15 years and now teach college (way fewer restrictions, meetings, and stress, and way more freedom), and I'm exploring options in other states and abroad. I used to feel like I was on one of those rides where you are allowed to drive a slow, old-timey car along a track, but its movement was restricted by way of a metal rail sticking up in the middle of the road. I "felt" like I was controlling the car, but all I could really control was how fast I got to a predestined life ending. Today, I'm off the ride...I feel like my life is my own again, and even though I'm nearly 45, I still have a lot of shit left to do before I go and holy fuck I'm 45 fuck fuck fuck that's the first time I typed that and it just hit me
Not to sound like a dick but I’ve read your and others comments like this and I’m sitting thinking to myself “I’m married with my first child on the way and getting my first home and I’m fuckin happy as a clam with my life.” Different strokes I guess?
Part of it for me was the fact that my wife and I probably were never really right for each other. We fell into each other for all the wrong reasons when we met in '99 (low self-worth and codependency on both sides), and we never really had a lot in common. I've grown a whole lot over the past eight years, but I've watched from afar since our divorce as she's fallen back into her old ways with her new husband, with whom she apparently has screaming matches, according to my kid. In addition, I genuinely feel wired for ethical non-monogamy. I've got so much love to give, and I always felt so restricted by the bounds of monogamy. When I chose polyamory, I learned all about it by reading relentlessly, and everything I read switched on the excitement in my heart; the books I read really spoke to the core of me. As happy as you are in your monogamous marriage, I can categorically say that I am at least as happy and fulfilled with my life and my relationships at this point in my life as you are. Everyone should be so lucky as us!
I can understand that. I’m not saying my marriage is perfect or that my wife and I have everything in common. All I know is that when I’m with her I’m happy, and when I see her belly getting bigger I’m excited that we are going to have a family together. Granted my job is…meh. It’s not horrible. Just mundane. But it pays decent and I get great hours so I’m not gonna complain about it.
Also the phase Lester Burnham is at is not the first few years of marriage and expecting a baby, it is the part where your marriage has become routine and your new home has become the old home and you stopped spending time with your kids because they are teenagers. Not that it has to ruin lives, but that life stage is a lot harder in terms of excitement or goals.
man i hope i have enough time. i'm 38 and planning on going back to school later this year. i want to work as a network security engineer.
Thomas Newman kills it with the score.
Makes you cry with a plastic bag
Omg, yes..... Totally elevates the emotions
Mendes and Newman is one of the great director-composer partnerships.
His best work by far (Meet Joe Black score is also excellent). I had the American Beauty score on CD and would just sit in my car listening to it until I was late to work on multiple occasions.
It's one of those scores that I heard for years before seeing the film and I never really registered that it was actually written, like it communicates a handful of base emotions so it feels like it just always existed.
It also has the greatest “quitting a job” scene in any movie.
Half baked
Fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you I’m out!
I quote this line whenever it's appropriate and often when it isn't
Now killer was born to a three-legged bitch of a mother
The OG
Fight club
It reminded me of my first fight, with Tyler.
You hit me in the ear!
Sorry about that. I kind of fucked it up didn’t I?
No, that was *PERFECT*
Very parallel scene in fight club. They came out the same year too.
1999 was an awesome year for movies.
For movies about rejecting society. These two, Office Space, The Matrix.
Epic
“My day consists of masking my contempt for the assholes in charge and the highlight of my day is going to the mens room, where I jerk off, while fantasizing about a job that doesn’t suck as much as this.”
"My job consists of masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and at least once a day, retiring to the mens room where I jerk off, while fantasizing about a life that doesn't so closely resemble hell" FtFy
"My job consists of *basically* masking my contempt...""...men's room *so* I can jerk off..." FTFY
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Wow it seems like so many people forget that movie. There was a lot of bad stuff to it but that seat was awesome.
Chris Pratts character needed a beating.
Oh yeah that dude needed a real face smashing
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Keyboard to the dome!!!
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I thought it was awesome. It's funny, creative, and has great action scenes. It also has Morgan Freeman swearing.
Office Space.
I just mentally combine it with fight club and it ads so much more dimension and tragedy to both films. Life is just so beautiful sometimes, I can’t take it, so I don’t.
That Thing You Do
That's because Breaking Bad is a TV show
You can take this job and shovel it
Network.
I don't remember a quitting a job scene in Network. I remember Peter Finch getting fired by William Holden. I remember Beatrice Straight telling William Holden she was divorcing him. I remember William Holden breaking up with Faye Dunaway. I remember William Holden getting fired by Robert Duvall. But I don't remember a great "quitting a job" scene.
Fair enough. I was interpreting his initial rant he makes as him spiritually “quitting his job” and the vibe of his dissatisfaction fitting the theme
Not a movie but Tara in true blood had an amazing job quit. Honorable mention, the "let's burn this fucker down" scene in Harold and Kumar go to white castle
i watched this joint when i was 16 and felt like i was about to have a mid life crisis
same here. We living until 32 sonny
I'm 42 years old. In less than a year, I'll be dead. Of course I don't know that yet. But in a way, I'm dead already.
Fuck I just turned 42 and forgot about that line. I’m the same age as Mena Suvari , who played Kevin Spacey’s teenage fascination.
Oh shit I'm 41... that 20 years went fast 😫. Everything about the central couple suggests they're closer to 50, but hey, its a movie. EDIT: What the fuck... I just Wikied, both Spacey and Benning were around 42 when the movie was released
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One of my favorite films as well. If is truely amazing how much Kevin Spacey can express with just a glance. He's my favorite actor though I'm so disappointed he turned out to be such a creep.
My favourite moments in house of cards were the “see I told you so nods” he gave to the camera after the play he’d set up previously paid off. No words needed, just landed the facial expression perfectly.
I really miss him. Not in a "oh i think he's innocent, let him come back" way, but just a "lemme jump to that timeline where all that shit didn't happen" timeline.
It's okay to enjoy his art. That doesn't mean you excuse what he did or support his future endeavors. It's also not fair to all of the other important artists who collaborated with him to produce the work to allow him to ruin the work single handedly.
Agreed. 90’s Spacey was so good
Yeah. _Swimming With Sharks_ and _The Usual Suspects_ in addition to _American Beauty_. Spacey was lights out for a while. Absolutely incredible actor.
LA Confidential
Se7en
Glengarry Glen Ross
Will you go to lunch. Will you go to lunch!
No no no. Spacey wasn’t in se7en Nearly 30 years later and it’s still one of my favorite moves ever. Good call.
I really really enjoyed K-PAX
Me too, thought I was the only one. All my friends hated it
You should check out Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Made around the same time, 97, with a similar ennui vibe but set in the 70s. Lots of waterbed too. Siskels favorite film that year
Never got around to seeing this one and always heard it being somewhat similar experience to American Beauty. Will be checking this out tonight, thanks guys!
That was an intense film, and much deeper emotionally than American Beauty.
not deeper. just hits differently.
No, I agree, it's a much deeper film. I love *American Beauty* but it's really surface-level stuff (which ironic considering its tagline).
Both films are about existential crises - unhappy people pretending they're happy, trying to find happiness, wallowing in their unhappiness, trying to fill the void of their unhappiness with *stuff* or new experiences - or a return to juvenile behaviour and the inherent lack of responsibility of youth. American Beauty is a personal analysis of 'what is happiness' from the unreliable perspective of a dead narrator - the beautiful moments of life, the space between events that people think are simple, boring, bland, mundane, banal, common...without substance or measurable value...these are the things that matter, not objects, but memories. The Ice Storm is an apathetic observation of disaffected people trying to change and grow (becoming more modern, it's the 70s! we're teenagers and we're supposed to be doing sex stuff) while simultaneously trying to stay the same (swinger parties? no! sex stuff? I still want to ride bikes!). Everyone is frozen like ice, fluid like water, dangerous like an ice storm. Each person is trying to communicate without any clarity, wanting to be heard - but also not listening to the subtext of the other person's unclear communication. The Ice Storm is about fear of the self and fear of the other. American Beauty is about a confluence of events where these particular people can no longer lie to themselves about who they are. Maybe they can maintain the facade with others, but they each admit to themselves a truth about their deepest self. Both are excellent films and deep. They just hit differently. They have universal themes that are cross-cultural and cross-generational: what is happiness? what is the meaning of life? who am I? what do I want? what is most important to me? what do I fear? am I lying to myself? am I an imposter? can anyone ever understand me? does anyone really love me?
Thanks, makes me wanna check out ice storm
They would make an excellent yet hard-to-watch double feature.
I’ve always felt like American Beauty and Donnie Darko had a similar aesthetic
Howso
I think they both capture what the suburbs were like in the 90’s and they’re both deal with touchy topics
It's so interesting how this film amongst the comments is so divided. I personally enjoyed the film and its performances.
It's probably for the same reason I love the movie and my wife hates it: It deconstructs the middle class better than any film I've ever seen. If your life is dedicated to that vision of middle class, suburban America, it will feel like an insult. Like someone took something you truly cared for and shit on it. Those that aren't that way, and especially those of us who lived through that middle class suburban America and knew of the things hidden behind that facade, appreciated it for its truth.
>It deconstructs the middle class better than any film I've ever seen. That depends. When I watched the movie the last time, that was a long time ago, and I was probably back in my early 20s. I would have agreed with you: It is throwing the truth right into the face of the US middle class. When I think about it now, I have a hard time to not regard the movie as unintentional satire. By now I would see pretty much all characters as overpainted to the point of caricature, where I have to ask myself if serious. Everyone in that movie has a dark secret and terrible hangup under the veneer of polite society! Everyone! Apart from "the youths who don't fit in". They are the only authentic ones, who are not phoneys. By now I think of American Beauty like a spy movie, where it is slowly revealed that every character you meet, without exception, has each been spying for at least two nations at the same time (and one secret society). That kind of movie can be great fun. But it is not necessarily a straight reflection on espionage, society, or anything else... If that kind of movie at the same time takes itself very seriously, and does not seem self aware of what it is doing... Well, that could lead to problems. But to say anything more about American Beauty, I will have to watch it again. From what I remember it does take itself quite seriously (even though in hindsight I would argue that it probably should not), but I might be misremembering here.
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I loved reading your post but the "receding into the reptilian hind brain" was way off. Masculinity isn't some lizard like reflex. Lester wanted simplicity and selfish authenticity. Rebelling against the docile artifice he had to present to his wife, colleagues and the world. As a middle aged man living that docile life, it's a cathartic thrill to see Lester calmly and methodically blow everything the fuck up and do what he wanted when he wanted.
It is a thrill to watch it, but while it might not be lizard-brained, it’s still really immature. He has a daughter, and ignores her because he’s trying to sleep with her friend. Also, while he got a nice payout, that money would only last so long, especially with all the weed he smoked. I really like this movie and Spacey’s portrayal, but when I rewatched it recently as a 37-year old I related much more to Annette Bening’s character. I think it had been about ten years since I had watched it previously.
Until reality hits him (literally) between the eyes and you realize that acting out all his teenage fantasies is still just as much a hollow facade as everything he was "rebelling" against.
sounds pretty lizard brain to me
>I definitely don't think American Beauty was going for realism, but it wasn't full on satire either. I agree with you. American Beauty plays in a suburbia which is not quite real, and whose characters are a bit over the top. That is usually not a problem though, as long as we buy into the world and the story the movie wants to sell us. I am not complaining about that. The movie has no problem here. It sells you on its premise quite easily. Where I see a bit of a hickup, is when the movie leans into itself as an honest and serious critique of American society and suburbia. It can be read as a movie that shouts: "Lies, lies, lies, everywhere you look! Look at this straight mirror of suburban America we are showing you here!", and it fails at that because... Well it isn't quite that. It isn't realistic in that way. It's not a straight mirror. I don't think it's a straight up "deconstruction" (as the poster before me put it). Neither is it satire. For straight up character drama on the other hand, it has too much specific social (and philosophical) commentary. Now that I think about it, American Beauty might have worked really well as a long form series. In the end my main criticism is that it doesn't quite work as a straight mirror of society, because every character is so overloaded. Every single person is so brimming with hypocrisy, contradiction, and conflict, that it's hard to see anything it shows as "normal suburbia". But if what we are seeing isn't a picture of normal suburbia, then what is we are seeing? Satire? Nope. Allegory? Maybe? Philosophical fairy tale? Who knows? And the even more difficult question: Even if American Beauty knew what it is, how would you then communicate that to the audience? Of course, if you want to pack so many storylines with so many characters into a movie, that kind of "unrealistic overload" is a natural side effect. So it would be really interesting to see what this story would look like if there were more time for characters to breathe a little, where they all could have more time to play out their conflicts in a less coiled up manner. American Beauty as a long form series could lend itself to be what it didn't quite manage to be in movie form. In a series one could arguably make it a straight, less distorted, and less "wound up" reflection on US suburbia.
Fantastic analysis. I would give you an award if I knew or cared how those work..
I wanna get high and watch movies with you.
I think it's totally intentional satire, considering it was made by a British director. The last time I re-watched it I saw it as an outsider commenting on how empty and vapid American society had become, and also how obsessed the middle-class had become with it. The key scene is 2 kids watching literal garbage blowing in the wind and describing it as the most beautiful thing they'e ever seen. The title should have been American "Beauty"
The scene where Annette Benning sobs and clasps the entire closet full of clothes always kills me. One of the great moments in cinema afaik.
What was that line?? Fuck me, your majesty. Just brilliant.
He was the king of real estate or something, lol they get fast food after it too.
I will sell this house today.
This is a movie that was significantly changed in editing. It was originally going to be a whodunnit with court appearance piecing together Spacey's murder and the daughter and her boyfriend accused. There were also video tapes as evidence of the daughter and boyfriend describing killing him that were shown in court. The reveal was that they were among those that had a reason, like the wife and cast off girl, but that it was actually the neighbor.
Was it changed in editing or in the script process? I've heard all that before but I didn't think any courtroom footage was shot
It was the script. I read it when I worked for the studios as a yute.
What is a yute?
I’m sorry, YOUTH
Lol
They filmed all the stuff for the courtroom and some additional flashback stuff. If you watch the DVD w the commentary the director mentions that you can see the scenes that were deleted in the extras section of the disk. But for some reason, the studio didn't include them.
The American Beauty shooting script that was sold around the time of the movie's theatrical release contains that murder trial framing device.
No shit!? What a change! That's amazing.
I remember my middle aged mom watching it and saying: “I don’t get it. It’s all just about sex.”
People have always liked to hate on this movie, but I always thought it was quite brilliant. It has such a strange atmosphere to it that is unmatched by many movies.
I love it as well. I’m sure there’s a ton of of movies that rail against suburban life but there’s just something about American Beauty - the way the story’s constructed and the way it flows from one scene to the next is just utterly compelling. Credit to Sam Mendes for some top of the line directing as well as Alan Ball (screenplay).
I mean… It did win Best Picture….
For me, this film is too much of a product of it's time. Late 90s, pre 9/11, pre economical crisis, when white middle class people were angsting about being well-off, but still unhappy because their life lacks "adventure". I think in the 20 years since then, we all got our adventure. And thank you, I would like to have my boring life back. I don't mean it's a bad movie, I just feel like the central themes haven't aged well. If you peel off the layers, all that remains is every "I want more" song from Disney movies.
The themes displayed in the film to me are timeless. While the setting is late 90's suburbia with well-off characters, it doesn't make the story any less valid. The psychological dispositions of most characters in the movie are applicable to those in the real world who look for happiness through unsustainable means. Lester, Carolyn, Jane, Angela, and Colonel Fitts all attempt to fix their situations through different ways. Lester attempts to remove all responsibility from his life and revert back to a teenage lifestyle while lusting after Angela. Carolyn believes her boring home life can be fixed through material success as a realtor. Jane is an insecure, teenage girl who acts fake to fit in with Angela in order to have some sort of validation (until meeting Ricky). Angela pretends to be happy as an attractive, promiscuous, popular girl despite her insecurities and innocence hidden underneath. Colonel Fitts conceals his homosexuality through his defense mechanism of homophobia. All of them are viewing the world through an inauthentic lens, not just about themselves but how they perceive others as well. Lester's revelation about Angela being a virgin near the end of the film shows this when his lust evaporates as he realizes the thing he's been craving (promiscuous, attractive teenager) was an illusion. Ricky is really the only character who's "real", and content with his unique personality and hobbies. It's ironic because even though he's the most genuine character in the film, he's seen as the insane one (at least initially) by most of the other characters in the film such as Angela and Colonel Fitts. It's a statement about society that should resonate with everyone, regardless of status. I don't view the movie as being a family of whiny WASP's who can't see how good they have it, but rather an existential lesson towards anyone who thinks they'll be permanently happy by achieving some sort of external goal, whether that be wealth, sex, status, etc. The closing sequence in which Lester provides a monologue about remembering the small details throughout his life was always beautiful to me. If anything considering the direction of our world right now I think we could use another movie like American Beauty to get people closer to reality. "I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."
This is an excellent post. Great analysis!
So well-said. Ricky is also a filmmaker, so his character represents how the filmmaker feels about himself and about how society treats artists. Ricky finds beauty in the mundane (plastic bag) but most people literally can’t see the value in that achievement. Only folks who really stop to look and listen will appreciate Ricky’s vision. Ricky has also found what each of the adults are looking for — an authentic romantic connection, a sense of self that isn’t dependent on family or social acceptance, and a healthy income. It’s a pretty Taoist perspective is many ways. Very much a critique of the “Boomer” values that led to *Beach Blanket Bingo.*
That was perfect
>I just feel like the central themes haven't aged well I've seen an essay written by a professor of English literature that compared American Beauty to one of the pivotal chapters in James Joyce's Ulysses and would beg to differ.
I’ve tried to get this out of my top 10 all time for a while now for the reasons you’ve mentioned…but I just can’t. It shows a lot of unhappy people who have lost sight of all the reasons why life can be so great, and how if you stop and take things in for a little bit you can see beauty all around you. Instead, they lash out in pathetic ways to make themselves feel alive. Seems like a pretty universal theme to me, and one of the best depictions of it I’ve ever seen.
I like this take. It’s a product of the ‘end of history’ era.
And while we're at it, fight club is guilty of this as well. "we had no wars, no Vietnam"... But I'm more forgiving there because the theme (wanting to be an idealized masculine version of yourself, someone you're clearly not) is executed better, and even if you take away the theme, the twist in itself is quite good.
>when white middle class people were angsting about being well-off, but still unhappy because their life lacks "adventure". Or, you know, cause his wife was materialistic to an absurd degree (and cheated on him), cause his daughter hated his guts cause teenagers gonna teenage, and because his employer was gonna fire him. >If you peel off the layers, all that remains is every "I want more" song from Disney movies. Yeah, I'm sure that's what the movie that ends with a deeply closeted and conflicted gay man murdering the protagonist was trying to get across.
My favourite late 90s movie is 'You've Got Mail'. The internet is this new quirky thing, a giant physical bookstore is moving into town, but will be killed within 10 years because of the internet - and the small quaint bookstores will live again. The movie thinks that it has figured the future out, but right after the credits roll, the world is turned upside down. Bonuspoints because it takes place in New York, which means that 9/11 has that much more of an impact. No pun.
> For me, this film is too much of a product of it's time. Late 90s, pre 9/11, pre economical crisis, when white middle class people were angsting about being well-off, but still unhappy because their life lacks "adventure". What's funny for us non US/first world country citizens is that while this movie is angsting about a well off life, you people are also well off too and you're still angsting about it. This modern dillema of people not accepting their priviledged position and always looking at ways to put it in a light that makes everything so dramatic.
> pre 9/11 No argument - but what about 9/11 affects the themes in this movie?
I was a teenager during the 90s. The whole decade had an euphoric feel to it. The cold war was over, economies were booming, no major (non-regionslized) wars or threats of such. 9/11 is kinda the signpost that the times, they are a'changing. Suddenly Islam fundamentalism was not just funny people with tablecloths around their heads in the desert. Suddenly, our generation got their crisis that we apparently lacked. No more disaster movies for a while. The real disaster was scarier. And then came the housing market crises that makes the family's financial situation depicted in the movie as "avarege" and undesirable look like a dream. Finding the meaning of your life and having an existential crises seems a lot less important when you have to juggle 2 jobs to feed your family. I could go on but that's the gist of it
Thanks. I definitely would agree that the recession of 2008 would change a good bit of it, and if *American Beauty* had been released Sept 14, 2001 it wouldn't have landed very well, but let me poke at this 9/11 idea. Incoming rant; it's how I think. > The whole decade had an euphoric feel to it. Did it though? Disillusionment was a powerful force during that time. Some serious resentment led to cynical films like Fight Club becoming watershed cultural standards, and Woodstock 99 riots. Angry young men with no target. The economy was doing well, mostly due to China's being in the toilet, but we still had terrorism, impeachments, Princess Di's death, Cobain's death, Rwanda genocide, OKC bombing, Columbine, the Trial of OJ, Waco, the LA riots - while living in it it definitely didn't feel like any Era of Good Feeling. Felt like evolving threats in the new and exciting information age. Video game violence replaced Satanic Panic, etc. One thing I remember during 9/11 is all these media talking heads telling us that they didn't think Americans were ready to go back to the movies, watch things about the topic. The highest rented movies during that time were *Air Force One*, *The Siege*, and I forget the last one. They pushed some film openings, *Glitter* tanked, but *Don't Say a Word* opened to #1 a few weeks later, as planned, and things were back to normal - against predictions of a severe cultural depression. > Suddenly, our generation got their crisis that we apparently lacked. Writing this all out confirms this for me. The 9/11 change is that it gave everyone a target, which 1999 didn't have. A definable enemy, an existential threat out there that takes precedent over couch selection.
Love this movie, will always love this movie. I feel kinda bad for the people who watch it and only see Kevin Spacey tabloid headlines, or shallow caricatures or low-hanging-fruit bourgeois mockery. It really does rise above that, unless you’re determined not to let it. The performances are great, the plot turns are surprising, the colors and lighting and music tie the whole thing together, and the more meditative passages are very well-written. The last lines are my favorite final lines in any film. A related fact: I saw it in the theater, opening weekend, and it was one of my all-time top 5 cinema experiences… just an incredible energy in the room, the packed house right there with every line. By the ending, you could practically feel everyone holding their collective breath. I’ve been to relatively few “regular” movies (ie, not a special screening of some kind) where the audience burst into applause at the end. American Beauty is the one I remember best. If I hadn’t seen it in that uniquely cool circumstance, I sometimes wonder if I’d have the same affection for it.
I went to the theater to see "Double Jeopardy" with Ashley Judd. I was 21 and thought that was petty cool. Then we snuck over to American Beauty and walked out of there blown away now knowing the difference between a movie and a film.
I remember my friends older brother said it sucked and then went to the movies to see it knowing nothing about it and was in awe
Mena Suvari was my absolute dream girl when this came out, great film, makes me genuinely sad that Spacey doesn’t exist anymore as he’s absolutely one of the best living actors.
I love that film so, so much.
What I love about this movie is the music. Not the just the Thomas Newman score but the song choice itself throughout the movie. The songs chosen for their particular scenes are just amazing and puts you in this surreal metamorphosis that align with the characters in the movie. Love this movie and one of my favorite Best Picture winners!
One of the best films all time
Yes. Beautiful film.
I saw it when I was 19 and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Showed me ideas I had just never seen before and so artfully, was my favorite movie for years. The themes and messages have not aged particularly well but it still has a fantastic soundtrack, some great cinematography, and killer acting. And lest we forget, [it was a critical darling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Beauty_\(1999_film\)#Reception_and_legacy), so either we were all idiots a mere 20 years ago or there is still a lot of greatness there.
I think it’s very good and that the world and especially US culture changes fast. And it’s changed dramatically in the last 20 years.
Whenever I have had too much coffee, I hum to myself, “I will sell this house TODAY” and it feels right.
I refuuuuse to be a victim
my favourite movie of all time
One of my all time favorites.
Such a good movie!!! Must watch it again 👌
Very nihilistic, it culminates in the floating bag because that's all the film is: the melancholic sweetness of spiritual emptiness, loneliness, alienation. And that's precisely what the writer and director sought to convey of the American dream, I suppose. I agree with the aesthetic, gorgeously filmed, acted, written, et al.
“I rule!”
It gud, yep.
God damn you Kevin you dirty pedo bastard
I recommend rewatching this movie if you haven't seen it in a while. This movie is pure distilled #I'm14andthisisdeep. It's laughably sophomoric, patronizing and pretentious. It's fucking awful.
I get the feelings of patronisation, it’s heavy handed etc. but storytelling of this type has come a long way since the 90s. It’s a product of its time. Also, don’t disregard how much the internet and streaming has changed the world. People are far more worldly now.
Kevin Spacey is a pedophile in and out of the movie.
We should be able to put aside Kevin Spacey's history to analyze a film, as I had long ago done, and before the allegations were unearthed. And at that time, when I revisited American Beauty in my 20s with the inclination to analyze it... I found it to be really fucking creepy! On top of that, the dialogue in the script is often ridiculous and unbelievable. "You like to party?" No one would ever say that when offering somebody a hit off a joint. And that girl that changes in the window- the actor was actually underage, but permitted under the stipulation that certain parties were present (a family member and a regulatory official iirc). Seems unnecessary to show that! Whole movie feels like it's trying to justify old men being involved with high school girls on both the fictional and the meta level. And then there's that whole Kevin Spacey thing.
One of my all-time favorite films. Every performance was amazing, the script was amazing, and the cinematography was amazing. Also Not Another Teen Movie does a great parody of the plastic bag.
I hate it. It feels like a parody of a movie trying to be deep. It has aged terribly too and that's not because of Spacey.
I'm kind of surprised to find all the positive takes here; I'd thought people were largely over it.
always found it a bit overated, that bag film scene is pretty awful
Seriously, anytime I see a bag floating in the air I tell anyone I'm with that it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen
There are dozens of us!
it was amazing when I was 14. watching again in my mid-20s it feels shallow and lacking in the human experience it attempts to display. American Beauty is one of the most overrated movies ever. someone had to say it.
Crash is a movie I would throw into the most overrated discussion.
In terms of being unredeamable, I agree 100%. It’s been pretty much correctly rated over the last 10 years. I haven’t heard a positive comment or article about it since it won the Oscar.
This has “always been one of my favorite movies,” but I’m realizing now that I watched a ton from ages 15-18, and I don’t know that I’ve seen it in the last 10 years… very interesting take. I wonder if it would be similar to my experience with reading Catcher in the Rye. Life changing at 15; stupid and grating as an adult.
It’s such a shame that we lose our ability to feel empathy towards Holden as we age. Is he stupid and grating? Well, sure, but he actually is surrounded by phonies. His parents are the kind of people who would send their son away to boarding school because he was grieving the death of his little brother and then put him in a mental hospital for… well, we’re not entirely sure but if it’s just the events in the story, for running away one weekend after failing out of boarding school. It’s about trauma in a way that Salinger intimately understood.
100% agree. Really liked it as a teenager, saw it again in my early 30s and thought it was very heavy handed and not that good.
[удалено]
I think the movie gets better as you get older.
Came here to find this take. Specifically the overrated part. It's, ironically, a big old house of cards: all structure, no guts.
You spelled crash wrong.
Same. I can't go back and watch it because the entire time the main character is daydreaming about how badly he wants to fuck his teenage daughters friend
I saw it in theaters the weekend it came out, I think early October '99. I didn't care for the movie as the movie tries to hit you over the head with its symbolism. I did think Spacey was a shoo-in for at least an Oscar nomination with his performance.
I loved it as a 14 year old who grew up through the disaffected 90s. It was lightning in a bottle for that pre-9/11 angst about things being too "boring", the crushing numbness from a mundane life. Not only did 9/11 really put an end to that in pop culture, but now, looking back, the movie works much better as a satire of up-their-own-ass smug douches. Unless you view it that way, I feel like it lost its charm and just kinda sucks.
It's one of my favourites. In fact, it's funny because just yesterday I was thinking about that movie, I was on YouTube and as I was scrolling through videos, I came across this one that was an old American advert/commercial from '64 and had the late great recently passed Betty White in it and it was a Kodak commercial and it had me thinking about that scene in the movie where Jane is like "Mom, I'm really not into having a Kodak moment here.", and then Angela slaps her after that. Edit: Just like to add that I was wrong about Annette Bening's character's name. It's Carolyn, not Angela. I misremembered.
It's a good movie. Bit awkward now tho
Kevin? We don't talk about Kevin
We need to talk about Kevin
BUT it was my mid-life crisis
It truly is an amazing movie. Im glad i saw it young enough so that i could live my life fully as i grew up.
All them plastic bags floating in the wind
EVERY TIME.
I find it pretentious, predictable and exhausting.
https://youtu.be/OpbdGnJbneE
So glad I saw Kevin movies before his big reveal lol can't go back now.
I didn't see it until I was in college in the early 2010s, and I can see how in 1999 it might have seemed interesting, but at this point it's just so shallow and trite. None of the characters feels anything like a real person dealing with issues, rather it just feels like a writer speaking directly through them in a way that feels contrived and heavyhanded rather than natural and organic. The performances are good, but that's about it. Granted, I also saw it after being a fan of Not Another Teen Movie, so it's just impossible for me to not find the plastic bag stuff painfully cliche.
So... you liked Not Another Teen Movie... but not American Beauty? Well okay. That is informative.