American Beauty

(Sam Mendes, 1999)

I saw American Beauty for the first time at the Oshawa Centre movie theatre in the fall of 1999. As I exited the theatre I had to fight back the tears by biting my bottom lip. I was convinced I’d seen a movie that would change the way I saw the world forever. No other movie to that point, and for some time later, would provoke such an open and honest reaction in me.

At the time, I was a fan of fare that flouted society’s rules, characters in films that shirked their responsibilities without regard for the consequences. Mike Judge’s “Office Space” featured a character hypnotized into not caring about a job that made his life miserable. The protagonist of Stephen Frears’ “High Fidelity” operated a business in spite of a laconic regard for his customers’ opinions. American Beauty has Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey. At 42 years old, Lester continues to work at the same job he had at the age of 28. His life stands still while an unnamable, burning desire within him begins to build speed.


To a 19-year-old kid, which I was at the time, the mid-life crisis is a foreign concept. I think I understand it a bit better after spending a lot of my twenties freaking out over life paths and social expectations. At the time, however, I identified far more with 18-year-old Ricky Fitts, Lester’s next-door neighbour, played by Wes Bentley. Ricky quits his job in front of Lester without batting an eye, making him Lester’s “own personal hero.” His youth lends him privileges – to sell drugs and have it look glamorous, to make films and look like a blossoming artistic talent. Lester feels the loss of privilege as he ages and feels himself sliding into images antithetical to those of the ones he had while flipping burgers and getting laid as a teenager.


Lester’s wife, Carolyn, played by Annette Bening, has deluded herself into championing the romanticized grown-up image. She has the daughter, the house, the neighborhood, the meals at the dining room table she was more than likely always instructed to want. Yet she weeps uncontrollably to herself, barely keeping it together, hurting herself physically in order to keep from admitting that the image is only a sick joke of artifice. As I watched the film again, I was struck anew by the efficacy and bravery of Bening’s performance. Lester and Carolyn offset each other perfectly, revealing two very different reactions to mid-life malaise.

I worked at a video store for a time. I told a co-worker that American Beauty was my favourite film, and she replied that she had seen it and didn’t understand its appeal. I told her that she was watching it wrong. It was meant to be a flip comment, something to shock with its arrogance. But there are degrees at which the film may be viewed. If I were to tell someone “how” to watch American Beauty I would tell them to figure out how the framing and bordering of each shot says something about the character in that frame. I would tell them to pay attention to which characters' faces are in light, and which are in shadow. Above all, I would mention the colour red.


Of course, this is all in credit to the great Conrad L. Hall, the film’s cinematographer. This was one of the last films he photographed in his lifetime. Hall once said in an interview that film audiences were always given credit for being smart, when in actuality they were “pretty stupid.” A flip comment. Something, maybe, to shock with its arrogance. But how many of us actually watch a film? How many of us are interested in HOW a film tells a story, and how it makes us feel the emotions we feel? We should not be content with artifice, with surface images. I like the idea that we should always require a film to dig deeper than mere appearance.

I would be remiss to not talk about how the film makes me feel. It’s one of the only films that makes me cry. There are two scenes in particular. The first is Ricky narrating over the video of what he calls “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever filmed” in an attempt at mining some emotional comprehension from Lester’s brooding teenage daughter Jane, played by Thora Birch. It is footage of a plastic bag, floating in the wind. Ricky talks about the bag’s invitation to view an “entire life behind things,” and how this recognition signals the existence of God. The second scene is the film’s conclusion: Lester narrates as his life flashes before his eyes, images intercut with the circumstances and reactions surrounding his death. He slowly and peacefully utters the line, “I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.” These words express a boundless humility and thankfulness in the face of infinite understanding, something I try to express at every conscious opportunity in daily life.


As a youth, I would have ideas that would rise in my head from time to time, usually when I found myself outside, walking, thinking, staring at my feet. I would notice something as simple as a stone on the side of a road and experience the strong impression that I was having a unique moment. No one would ever notice the stone I was seeing, or think about it in the same way. It was a purely singular experience that would never be repeated. Since seeing the film for the first time, I have read poetry that has hoisted the seemingly mundane to the level of the holy. I have studied transcendentalism, which operates under the principle that God is perfectly visible to humanity in the natural world. American Beauty gave me the language for these ideas first. There are moments in life when it feels as though God is looking right at you. You can choose to either look away, or look closer.


Eight more reviews to go.