01/15/10 - American Beauty

American Beauty (1999, 122 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/

This was a movie I had wanted to watch for some time now. I remember when it came out back in 1999 but it was obviously not the type of film for me to watch at that age. I'm a Kevin Spacey fan so I was also excited about that.

The film stars that Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham, a suburbanite who hates his life. His wife is Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening), a local real estate agent. Thora Birch plays their angst-filled daughter Jane Burnham. Jane has a friend named Angela Hayes played by Mena Suvari. A rival local real estate agent of Carolyn's is Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher). The remaining main cast is filled out when at the start of the movie new neighbors move in next door: Col. Frank Fits, USMC (Chris Cooper); Barbara Fitts (Allison Janney); Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley). As the movie unfurls, complicated relationships among these people begin to develop until the bloody conclusion.

This is a huge cast with pretty much every character mentioned above featuring prominently at some point in the movie. Kevin Spacey is the leading actor and of the most importance throughout the entire film. He does the best job of anyone, gradually displaying more happiness as the movie rolls along, while also occasionally releasing some pent-up rage. He displays a wide variety of emotions (and sometimes even no emotion at all) and it's all done very well. I would say the next most impressive character is that of Bentley's Ricky Fitts. He's quiet and solemn but he carries himself well in his role, fully seeming to inhabit his character. The next actor worthy of mention is that of Cooper. 1999 must have been before Chris Cooper was typecast in his role of government employee because this is a real character he plays here that isn't all that flat. Add to that that the character is somewhat minor for most of the movie and he really puts together a solid performance. The remaining cast are all solid as well but no one really shines like these three in my opinion. Bening does probably the best job of the rest of the cast though.

One of my newly discovered favorite genres in the noir and that is exactly what American Beauty is. While I didn't know that when I started it, it becomes immediately obvious with the starting voice over of Lester Burnham. I liked that these voice overs occurred with a flyover. At first. However, by about the third time it was somewhat boring and maybe some different view should have been used or some variety to spice it up. However, the voice over thing as a whole was good.

One problem I had with American Beauty was that there were too many "important characters." Naturally, I compare this film to L.A. Confidential which was a similar twisting noir. However, in L.A. Confidential there were three main characters that the story followed. Here in American Beauty there were about five or so people of huge importance. Granted, some of these characters were closely tied with some other character and followed a similar story arc, but it still forced the movie to spend time developing too many people. I felt that as it turned out, the movie would have been better if one of these main characters was actually turned into a secondary or more minor role. I think this would have worked with Jane Burnham the most. Her role was already closely tied with both Angela Hayes and then gradually shifted to being more in line with Ricky Fitts. Maybe using her as she was used at the beginning but then focusing more on just Ricky as the story progressed as opposed to both of them. Sure, she's an interesting character, but there were just too many and she could have gone. A character like Buddy Kane was a well developed minor role where he seemed realistic but there wasn't too much time spent focusing on him.

A really cool thing I liked in the movie was the use of windows. Frequently what was going on was perceived completely differently on each side of the window. I thought this was a cool little motif or whatever that was used to just the right extent. Similarly, the movie featured three different styles: normal, fantasy, and video camera. Each style was completely different and was used really well. Neither of the two non-standard styles was overly used either in my opinion, occasionally popping up but almost always serving a purpose when used. I read some comments that the film tried to be too artsy but I disagree with this. The fantasy and video camera sequences were not overused and when they were used they brought up a point so they were never used just to be there or whatever.

I also really liked the ending to the film. The death of Lester Burnham was known from the beginning but was handled so that it was still a surprise. The shots of where everyone was when the shot rang out was a nice way to do the sequence in my opinion. And just by having this killing be done by Col. Frank Fitts instead of the expected Carolyn Burnham was done well. It also wasn't done in an intentionally "Ha! We fooled you!" way either like some twists are, so I liked that as well.

Overall, I gave this film a 7/10. I really liked a lot of what American Beauty was doing. However, there were just too many characters and it hurt the movie. It's not that it was overwhelming or anything like that, just that it made me care less for some characters since it seemed to try and make everyone important. Did it deserve to win some of the awards it won in 1999? No question about that, but I think it fell short in a few places. I'm glad I finally saw it though.