Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening. A suburban family sinks into decay
as lust, depression and superficiality overtake their lives. This
masterful dark comedy won five Os including Best Picture!
1999/color/122 min/R/widescreen.
.com
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From its first gliding aerial of a generic suburban street,
American Beauty moves with a mesmerizing confidence and acuity
epitomized by Kevin Spacey's calm narration. Spacey is Lester
Burnham, a harried Everyman whose midlife awakening is the spine
of the story, and his very first lines hook us with their teasing
alism--like Sunset Boulevard's Joe Gillis, Burnham tells us
his story from beyond the grave.
It's an audacious start for a film that justifies that audacity.
Weaving social satire, domestic tragedy, and whodunit into a
single package, Alan Ball's first theatrical script dares to blur
generic lines and keep us off balance, winking seamlessly from
dark, scabrous comedy to deeply moving drama. The Burnham family
joins the cinematic short list of great dysfunctional American
families, as Lester is pitted against his manic, materialistic
realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, making the most of a
mostly unsympathetic role) and his sullen, contemptuous teenaged
daughter, Jane (Thora Birch, utterly convincing in her edgy
balance of self-absorption and wistful longing). Into their lives
come two catalytic outsiders. A young cheerleader (Mena Suvari)
jolts Lester into a sexual epiphany that blooms into a second
adolescence. And an eerily calm young neighbor (Wes Bentley)
transforms both Lester and Jane with his canny influence.
Credit another big-screen newcomer, English theatrical director
Sam Mendes, with expertly juggling these potentially disjunctive
elements into a superb ensemble piece that achieves a stylized
pace without lapsing into transparent self-indulgence. Mendes has
shrewdly insured his success with a solid crew of stage veterans,
yet he's also made an inspired discovery in Bentley, whose Ricky
Fitts becomes a fulcrum for both plot and theme. Cinematographer
Conrad Hall's sumptuous visual design further elevates the film,
infusing the beige interiors of the Burnhams' lives with vivid
bursts of deep crimson, the color of roses--and of blood. --Sam
Sutherland
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Additional Features
-------------------
Given American Beauty's critical and box office reception, it's
not surprising that cast and crew commentaries supplied in the
DVD Awards Edition carry a self-congratulatory vigor, not just in
the studio's featurette on the making of the film, but in the
disc's special narrative content. On DVD American Beauty balances
these supplemental components against the disc-space requirements
for DTS digital audio as well as Dolby digital tracks. Even with
that constraint, however, the disc inserts over three hours of
additional content: a commentary track with screenwriter Alan
Ball and director Sam Mendes illuminates how Ball's script was
translated into Mendes's vision; a storyboard feature walks
through the film's visual design, with Mendes and veteran
cinematographer Conrad L. Hall dissecting its use of composition,
color, special effects, and film and video stock; and viewers can
scroll through the script itself in a special split-screen
feature accessible in DVD-ROM drives. In addition to other online
DVD-ROM options, the package includes production notes, two
theatrical trailers, and biographies of cast and crew--all
allowing DVD owners to follow the movie's ad slogan, "Look
closer," quite literally. --Sam Sutherland
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