Product Description: When youve got nothing to lose you might as well risk everything. Lester burnham is in a rut. Facing a midlife crisis lester reverts into a maddening rebirth of adolescence. His sudden irreverant rebellion enrages his wife and confuses his daughter when he turns a lustful gaze toward her friend. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 01/17/2006 Starring: Kevin Spacey Thora Birch Run time: 122 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com essential video: From its first gliding aerial shot of a generic suburban street, American Beauty moves with a mesmerizing confidence and acuity epitomized by Kevin Spacey's calm narration. Spacey is Lester Burnham, a harried Everyman whose midlife awakening is the spine of the story, and his very first lines hook us with their teasing fatalism--like Sunset Boulevard's Joe Gillis, Burnham tells us his story from beyond the grave.
It's an audacious start for a film that justifies that audacity. Weaving social satire, domestic tragedy, and whodunit into a single package, Alan Ball's first theatrical script dares to blur generic lines and keep us off balance, winking seamlessly from dark, scabrous comedy to deeply moving drama. The Burnham family joins the cinematic short list of great dysfunctional American families, as Lester is pitted against his manic, materialistic realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, making the most of a mostly unsympathetic role) and his sullen, contemptuous teenaged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch, utterly convincing in her edgy balance of self-absorption and wistful longing). Into their lives come two catalytic outsiders. A young cheerleader (Mena Suvari) jolts Lester into a sexual epiphany that blooms into a second adolescence. And an eerily calm young neighbor (Wes Bentley) transforms both Lester and Jane with his canny influence.
Credit another big-screen newcomer, English theatrical director Sam Mendes, with expertly juggling these potentially disjunctive elements into a superb ensemble piece that achieves a stylized pace without lapsing into transparent self-indulgence. Mendes has shrewdly insured his success with a solid crew of stage veterans, yet he's also made an inspired discovery in Bentley, whose Ricky Fitts becomes a fulcrum for both plot and theme. Cinematographer Conrad Hall's sumptuous visual design further elevates the film, infusing the beige interiors of the Burnhams' lives with vivid bursts of deep crimson, the color of roses--and of blood. --Sam Sutherland
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - artistic attack on middle class values
This is a good film and and I would like it except for two things: The title and the fact there was nothing to feel good about in watching this film--it was depressing. It is a not-so-subtle attack on ... Read More
Rating: - Absolutely Amazing
This is one of my favorite movies and it gets better each time you watch it. You can identify with some of the characters in the movie and although it is dark and sad, it has a moral to the story and the ... Read More
Rating: - Loved this Movie!
American Beauty reflects the beginnings of the "Impressionistic" stage of movie making. The scenes and characters are conglomerations of situations and "types" of people... The real estate agent, the bored ... Read More
Rating: - Even though it's a bit old by now, still a great overall film
My mom had this dvd lying around the living room so I decided to watch it today since I was bored with nothing else to do. I knew a little bit about it from watching the oscars back in 1999 and from word-of ... Read More
Rating: - An outstanding accomplishment
Drama in which a middle-class suburban family begins to fall apart when husband and father Kevin Spacey starts going through a mid-life crisis, quitting his job as a magazine writer, befriending his teenage daughter ... Read More
- artistic attack on middle class values
- Absolutely Amazing