Many critics adored American Beauty upon its release, and some surely stand by it today. Crimson American Beauty roses arranged stiffly in bowls throughout the house, in nearly every scene a gleaming red front door that’s the only distinguishing characteristic of a house exterior that’s otherwise numbingly restrained a scarlet blood splatter against a pristine white wall: Block that color symbolism! And the movie’s visuals practically beg for banal student-term paper analysis. Spacey brings all the edgy anxiety and brittleness his role demands of him, but not even he can negotiate the movie’s unearned “Gosh, life is beautiful after all!” shift, which swerves at us out of nowhere. As menacing neighbor Colonel Fitts, Chris Cooper signals “uptight marine” by merely looking constipated. Generally phenomenal actors give performances as tortured as sailors’ knots: Annette Bening, as Lester’s wife, Carolyn, is a shrill, brittle, sexually repressed mom and real-estate agent, a cartoon stretched to the max. The debut film of director Sam Mendes (who’d already made his name in the theater world), American Beauty was crafted in the most pristine and soulless way, manicured and buffed to bland tastefulness it’s one of the most laughably square movies about the destructiveness of conformity ever made.Ĭharacters are saddled with moony faux-philosophical dialogue (“Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it”) or signpost language loaded with portent (“All I know is I love firing this gun!”). But what, exactly, is an “authentic life,” and how was partaking of the American Beauty experience supposed to help you live one? American Beauty was a bad movie then, and it’s bad now: Kevin Spacey plays middle-aged suburban husband Lester Burnham, with a good but boring job, who recognizes how empty his life is when he develops an obsession-one he almost acts upon-with his teenage daughter’s school friend, played by Mena Suvari.

The seeker the who american beauty