American Beauty (Sam Mendes)

Sufficiently interesting or enjoyable movies don't need purpose or meaning; American Beauty just missed these criteria and left me wondering why I watched it. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued enough to immediately write.

The experience swung between tortured cliche and tortured confrontation. Most of the hooks were extremely archetypal, especially early. Of course casting formulaic lives for characters can create dramatic upheaval situations later, but I doubt the film itself (non-diegetic so to speak) needed to be so formulaic. Should we watch an hour of relatively banal film only for the sake of its upturning? I don't think the reward was sufficient justification. For a look at banal lives crumbling in the rain I recommend another film from the same year, which I needn't name. American Beauty doesn't quite pay out. I don't mean it's really boring at any point, but how can cliches engineered to snag on our subconscious really be boring, unless the consumer is saturated with modern media? I think I am not; I was never bored, and I don't dislike the movie -- but I find it difficult to justify. I appreciate the movie. It arrested my attention and emotion, it surprised me, it stimulated me, and it made me wonder by the end. But it was not joyful nor beautiful nor fascinating nor educational. In its defense 1999 was another millennium, but think about other movies of that time, or decades earlier. I think there's some backward indulgence driving parts of the film and undermining its purpose.

The world is beautiful. Don't be ordinary. Don't be a horrible miserable idiot. I've learned these lessons more effectively through other films, not to mention music, literature and more. Art has certainly been one of my best teachers in these subjects. American Beauty isn't our best candidate to speak on them. Its worthiness is compromised by its ulterior tendencies. Remember how ugly Magnolia and Synecdoche paint sex? Neither impresses that middle-aged men should be optimistic about teenagers. The other films sail true to their passionate course. This film is passionate above all -- let it be appreciated -- but it is misguided.

I respect the film as fearless. It was not afraid to (spoilers) kiss Lester and Angela, heroize a voyeur, enjoy teenage nudity, drip Lester's brains down the wall. It was intriguing, surprising, upsetting, and honest. But for what? And sometimes the shock landed empty and confused. For instance, why was Ricky really so bold? Can we understand it? Why did his father act so lethally homophobic and then so desperately homosexual? Do people really act like that? Why was Lester narrating postmortem? This film introduced some intrigue but failed to answer its own questions which would round out the experience and the education. Is there really a lesson to this film or is there some vague beauty-talk green-screened on a strange upsetting tale?

The thematic material was too nearly celebrated, though I respect the film's fearless confrontation with that possibility. In high school this film may have changed my life. But I'm 24 and have seen plenty of this. I can't extract much for my life. And as a film: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography? It hasn't aged so well.