American Beauty
USA 1999
Reviewed by Kevin Jackson
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Connecticut, the present. Lester Burnham's life is cracking up: his wife Carolyn, an estate agent, and his daughter Jane both despise him; his new boss is threatening to fire him. Lester becomes obsessed with his daughter's schoolmate, the sexually precocious Angela, after seeing her perform a cheerleading routine. Meanwhile, Ricky - the son of the Burnhams' new next-door neighbour, a violent and reactionary retired marine colonel named Frank Fitts - makes videos of Jane.
Pursuing his lost youth, Lester quits work and takes a job in a fast-food restaurant. He also starts to work out and indulge in recreational drugs supplied by Ricky. Carolyn begins an affair with her commercial rival Buddy Kane, and Jane and Ricky begin to fall in love. Disgusted by her father's infatuation with Angela, Jane asks Ricky to kill him. Lester finds out about Carolyn's affair when she and Buddy drive by his new workplace for burgers. Buddy breaks off the affair.
One night, Frank spies on Ricky and Lester. Because of the angle from which he sees them rolling and smoking a joint, Frank mistakenly concludes Lester is forcing the boy to fellate him. Frank beats up his son, so Ricky prepares to leave town with Jane. Distraught, Carolyn drives through the night with a loaded gun. Frank confronts Lester, apparently with violence in mind, but instead makes a homosexual advance which Lester refuses. Lester finally gets a chance to have sex with Angela, but on finding she's actually a virgin, grows paternal instead. Frank enters the house and shoots Lester. At the moment of his death, Lester sees his life pass before him.
Review
The raw material of American Beauty does not, let's be frank, sound very promising. A satirical portrait of suburban conformity? My dear, how terribly bold. A comic study of an homme moyen sensuel in the throes of a midlife crisis? How fearsomely original.
This just goes to show how misleading mere synopses can be. If there's hardly anything in the film's plot which isn't a cliché, there's hardly anything in its execution which doesn't seem effortlessly, indeed brilliantly, to transcend cliché. It's a wonderfully resourceful and sombre comedy and, like the greatest examples of the form, is as much about the perennial themes of self-delusion, conceit and madness as it is about the ephemeral idiocies of the day. To compare the story of Lester Burnham's midlife crisis with other comedies about ageing guys with the hots for a nubile girl (Blame It on Rio, say) would be as misconceived as bracketing The Alchemist with Are You Being Served? Even when American Beauty's comedy is at its broadest and most grotesque - and there are moments which are every bit as brazenly laugh-seeking and laugh-getting as a good episode of Frasier or The Simpsons - the proceedings are given some unexpected nuance.
Take the scene in which Lester's wife Carolyn and her ghastly lover Buddy drive by the fast-food joint and are served by Lester in his adopted role as a born-again proletarian. It plays well enough as a farcical agony of embarrassment, but what really tells in the scene is the note of steely aplomb in Lester's voice as he asks them if they'd like special sauce with their order. If only for a second or two, he's made himself top dog by glorying in the position of bottom dog, and the sense of power tastes more delicious to him than any fancy ketchup.
Kevin Spacey has had so many raves over the past few years that it seems almost redundant to point out what a superbly accomplished actor he is. But American Beauty allows him to shine in certain ways we've not seen before. What renders his performance as Lester so satisfying is partly his ability to make the man seem both sap and hero (a man who should be acting his age, for God's sake, and is absolutely right not to act his age) and partly his evocation of a soul managing to grow, or be refound, out of banal misery. If I had to pick a single, simple moment from the whole film to demonstrate to sceptics quite how remarkable he is, it would probably be the one when he tells Frank he's not up for gay sex. Spacey delivers it with unimpeachable gentleness: it's the actorly equivalent of a note hit by a singer with perfect pitch.
With a central performance of this calibre, probably the most remarkable thing about American Beauty is that Spacey doesn't upset the film's dramatic balance. Sam Mendes, as you might expect of a director with a hefty track record in the theatre (he directed The Rise and Fall of Little Voice on stage), has made Alan Ball's intricate script play fluently as an ensemble piece, deftly serving every change of tone from goofy knockabout to beady observation.
You'd never guess Mendes was new to the cinema, though you might infer his knowledge of the stage from his penchant for head-on tableau compositions and the occasional touch of heightened reality in the performances, as with Annette Bening's sado-masochistic pep talk to herself about selling houses. Time and again, you fear Mendes won't be able to sustain such a confident shuffling of his pack, but somehow he does, and for once the result is a genuine surprise. At the end of the press screening I saw, a total stranger came up to me and said, in tones of disbelief, "That was a gem!" Politeness obliged me to agree; so did honesty.
Credits
- Director
- Sam Mendes
- Producers
- Bruce Cohen
- Dan Jinks
- Screenplay
- Alan Ball
- Director of Photography
- Conrad L. Hall
- Editors
- Tariq Anwar
- Christopher Greenbury
- Production Designer
- Naomi Shohan
- Music
- Thomas Newman
- ©DreamWorks LLC
- Production Companies
- DreamWorks Pictures presents a Jinks/Cohen Company production
- Co-producers
- Stan Wlodkowski
- Alan Ball
- Production Controller
- Jim Turner
- Production Co-ordinator
- Christa Vausbinder
- Unit Production Manager
- Cristen Carr Strubbe
- Location Manager
- Christine Bonnem
- Post-production
- Executive:
- Martin Cohen
- Supervisor:
- Lisa Dennis Kennedy
- Co-ordinator:
- Lisa Marie Serra
- Assistant Directors
- Tony Adler
- Carey Dietrich
- Rosemary Cremona
- Peter E. Hirsch
- Stephanie Kime
- 2nd Unit:
- Chris Edmonds
- Michelle Muggs Edmonds
- Script Supervisors
- Ana Maria Quintana
- 2nd Unit:
- Marilyn Giardino-Zyeh
- Casting
- Debra Zane
- ADR Voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- 2nd Unit Directors of Photography
- Conrad W. Hall
- David Golia
- Camera Operators
- Aaron Pazanti
- Video:
- Geoffrey Haley
- Special Visual Effects
- CFC/MVFX, Los Angeles
- Supervisors:
- Rob Hodgson
- David Goldberg
- Producers:
- Janet Yale
- Jonathan F. Styrlund
- Compositors:
- Fortunato Frattasio
- Matt Dessero
- 3D Artists:
- Robert Chapin
- John Cassella Jr
- Paint/Roto Artists:
- Tomme B. Stanley
- Susan Evans
- Nicolle Cornute
- Editorial:
- Matt Magnolia
- Managing Director:
- Don Fly
- Special Effects Co-ordinator
- John C. Hartigan
- Art Director
- David S. Lazan
- Set Designers
- Andrea Dopaso
- Suzan Wexler
- Set Decorator
- Jan K. Bergstrom
- Storyboard Artists
- Robin Richesson
- Tony Chance
- Costume Designer
- Julie Weiss
- Costume Supervisor
- Hope B. Slepak
- Make-up
- Key:
- Tania McComas
- Artist:
- Christine M. Steele
- 2nd Unit, Artist:
- Juliet Loveland
- Key Hair Stylist
- Carol A. O'connell
- Hair Stylists
- Patricia Dehaney-Le May
- 2nd Unit:
- Cheri Ruff
- Steve R. Soussana
- Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Orchestrations
- Thomas Pasatieri
- Music Supervisor
- Chris Douridas
- Executive in Charge of Music
- Todd Homme
- Music Editors
- Bill Bernstein
- Joanie Diener
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Dennis Sands
- Soundtrack
- "Because" by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, performed by Elliott Smith; "Bali Ha'i" by Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers, performed by Peggy Lee; "On Broadway" by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, arranged by Paul Lavender; "Use Me" by/performed by Bill Withers; "Open the Door" by/performed by Betty Carter; "Tenderfoot" by Rick Arbuckle, performed by Zen Radio; "Something Grand" by Hilton Ruiz, performed by Hilton Ruiz Ensemble; "We Haven't Turned Around" by Ian Ball, Paul Blackburn, Thomas Gray, Benjamin Ottewell, Oliver Peacock, performed by Gomez; "Cancer for the Cure" by E & Mickey Petralia, performed by Eels; "American Woman" by Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Jim Kale, Gary Peterson, performed by The Guess Who; "All along the Watchtower" by/performed by Bob Dylan; "Don't Rain on My Parade" by Jule Styne, Bob Merrill, performed by Bobby Darin; "Call Me Irresponsible", "Where Love Has Gone" by Sammy Cahn, James Van Heusen, performed by Bobby Darin; "As Long As I'm Singing" by/performed by Bobby Darin; "The Seeker" by Pete Townshend, performed by The Who; "All Right Now" by Andy Fraser, Paul Rodgers, performed by Free; "Don't Let It Bring You Down" by Neil Young, performed by Annie Lennox
- Choreography
- Paula Abdul
- Production Sound Mixer
- Richard Van Dyke
- Re-recording Mixers
- Scott Millan
- Bob Beemer
- Additional Audio
- Mark Ormandy
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Scott Martin Gershin
- Dialogue Editors
- Simon Coke
- Mark Gordon
- Sound Effects Editors
- Alan Rankin
- Bryan Bowen
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Trevor Jolly
- Recordist:
- Brian Basham
- Mixers:
- Richard Weingart
- Dean Drabin
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jeffrey B. Wilhoit
- James Moriana
- Recordist:
- Greg Zimmerman
- Mixer:
- Nerses Gezalyan
- Editors:
- Peter Zinda
- Tom Ozanich
- Research
- Deborah Ricketts
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Ben Scott
- Animal Handler
- Joy A. Green
- 2nd Unit Pilot
- Robert Bobby Z Zajonc
- Cast
- Kevin Spacey
- Lester Burnham
- Annette Bening
- Carolyn Burnham
- Thora Birch
- Jane Burnham
- Wes Bentley
- Ricky Fitts
- Mena Suvari
- Angela Hayes
- Peter Gallagher
- Buddy Kane
- Allison Janney
- Barbara Fitts
- Scott Bakula
- Jim Olmeyer
- Sam Robards
- Jim Berkley
- Chris Cooper
- Colonel Frank Fitts
- Barry Del Sherman
- Brad
- Ara Celi
- sale house woman 1
- John Cho
- sale house man 1
- Fort Atkinson
- sale house man 2
- Sue Casey
- sale house woman 2
- Kent Faulcon
- sale house man 3
- Brenda Wehle
- Lisa Cloud
- sale house women 4
- Alison Faulk
- Krista Goodsitt
- Lily Houtkin
- Carolina Lancaster
- Romana Leah
- Chekesha Van Putten
- Emily Zachary
- Nancy Anderson
- Reshma Gajjar
- Stephanie Rizzo
- Spartanettes
- Heather Joy Sher
- Chelsea Hertford
- teenage girls
- Amber Smith
- Christy Kane
- Joel McCrary
- catering boss
- Marissa Jaret Winokur
- Janine, Mr Smiley's counter woman
- Dennis Anderson
- Mr Smiley's manager
- Matthew Kimbrough
- firing range attendant
- Erin Cathryn Strubbe
- young Jane Burnham
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 10,969 feet
- 121 minutes 53 seconds
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Prints by
- Technicolor
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound/SDDS
- Super 35 [2.35:1]