American Beauty

My girlfriend and I watched American Beauty last night and she did the math… Mena and Lester are both 42 🤯 Makes me feel old!

Also, the first three quarters of the movie get sillier, more heavy-handed, and less relevant every time I watch it, but damn… the last 30 minutes still get me! If you’ve never seen it, it’s still worth the watch.

Kevin Spacey has been rightfully canceled, but my god he gives such a layered performance in this movie. Everyone does. I do not like Anette Benning as an actress and her performance, especially in the end of the movie is so good. There's a lot of uncomfortable subplots in the movie, especially dealing with Lester's infatuation with his daughter's teenaged friend, but I feel that stuff worked in this movie. It's a weird melodrama and really an acting showcase. Chris Cooper's performance later knowing what we know is also outstanding as well.

First up, I think I should mention the obvious: Yes, Kevin Spacey is a massive nonce and deserves punishment. However, this is about the film and not Spacey's dirty deeds. If I state any praise for him, it's purely for his performance in this film. I don't want any debates about Spacey being a nonce.

I watched this film years ago and recently discovered it again. It does feel slightly dated now, but I feel like a lot of it is still relevant today too. The slow unravelling of some characters, particularly Lester and Carolyn was very well portrayed by Spacey and Benning (she was robbed of that Best Actress Oscar!).

In my opinion the best complex character was Chris Cooper as Col. Fitts. Abusive, homophobic repressed homosexual. Alison Janning deserves a lot of praise for what I thought was an underrated performance as his wife. It isn't explicitly mentioned what exactly is wrong with her character, I'm just assuming that she was the down-trodden and possibly battered wife.

Performances aside, I thought the story was great. I loved the many references to red and white colours together (being a Saints fan might make me biased though). It may have been slightly pretentious in places (the beauty of a plastic bag scene still makes me cringe) but I'd definitely watch it again.

Edit: Spelling of nonce.

I had been thinking about rewatching it for a month or so, but couldn't remember why I thought it was so good when it first came out. And I wasn't sure it was going to hold up after 30 years, but it definitely did. Ignoring the recent revelations of Kevin Spacey's characters flaws, I thought he was superb. Annette Bening played her character's neuroses perfectly. Chris Cooper's Colonel was scary and heart-breaking at the same time. But Allison Janney as the perhaps abused, perhaps mentally ill, perhaps PTSD-inflicted wife of the abusive Colonel was just plain eerie. The years of pain, fear, and powerlessness were evident in every movement, every distant gaze, every confused turn of her head. I just loved her performance.

Just a great movie all around. Well written and fantastically acted by the entire cast. i encourage everyone to give it a rewatch, and if any of you youngsters out there haven't seen it, get off Reddit and go watch American Beauty right now!

Edit: 21 years, not 30. Maths is hard.

American Beauty is one of the greatest movies Hollywood has produced, ever. I was watching it the other day and found the ending monologue to be somewhat Stoic so I decided to share it here without spoiling the movie.

“...I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me; But it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much - My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst.

And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain.

And, I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But, don't worry. You will someday”

What I found odd was how quick she ended up in direct to video horror.

She got a Golden Globe nomination for Ghost World, a movie she got rave reviews and after that, nothing. Why would she struggle to get work when lesser actresses had a easier time? And this was someone who already had a established career as a child actress and was able to cross over as an adult but she then disappeared into DTV land.

Not that I minded her doing horror, I thought she was very good in THE HOLE but DTV horror was the bottom of the barrell for someone who was getting a lot of attention from critics.