Studio:Dreamworks ,Prod. Bruce Cohen & Dan Jinks.Directed by: Sam Mendes,Writer: Alan Ball, Stars: Kevin Spacey, Annete Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Peter Galllagher, Chris Cooper .Release date:Wed. Sept. 22 ,1999..Theater:20scr.Movie played on:3scr. 50 to 60 patrons.Gross so far:$7.4mil.limited release.

Oscars all around.
After wondering when I would start seeing the oscar worthy performances and films (only The Red Violin and Sixth Sense have blown me over so far) I took a vacation out of L.A. the week this film opened, and mentioned to anybody who would listen (I should have written a prereview but was busy with vacation plans) that just by seeing the trailer for American Beauty I felt it had the potential to be the first film with oscar buzz written all over it, and I am certainly not ashamed to admit that my intuitions were correct.

I believe American Beauty opens wide this weekend, and if you haven't heard of this film yet, then you owe it to yourself to go. The ads are already saying "best reviewed movie of the year" but there are so few good reviews because there are so few good films, and some of those good films seem to play on so few screens, that it is immensely satisfying that American Beauty is being released in an "old-fasioned" pattern, with premieres on certain screens in L.A. and New York, and then opening wider as word of mouth intensifies. (Rather than shooting the whole ball of wax with a 7000 screen opening on one weekend and hoping everyone shows up because of the hype, like  the blockbusters.) American Beauty is not a blockbuster, but hopefully the numbers will prove it to be. Already it is #5 on the box office charts, and I believe it will grow, like Titanic, till it sort of takes over the charts. That is unless people flock to some of the other relationship movies like Random Hearts and The Story of Us which are coming out. And of course there is The Three Kings this weekend. So maybe it won't get the numbers it deserves, but I certainly hope quite a few people see American Beauty, because, it is, just that, and American Beauty of a film with just the right touches of insight, comedy, drama, tragedy, despair, and ultimately, hope, that people should see and store in their memory.

I often say that there are two types of filmed entertainment. 1) Movies, or "popcorn rides" like Star Wars (even figuring in the mythology) and the current Double Jeopardy.2) Films. Anything by Scorcese. The kinds of entertainment which teach or preach, but almost always enlighten as well as entertain. American Beauty falls in the second group, for sure. This is a work of art, directed by a stage director, Sam Mendes (Cabaret, The Blue Room) who lingers just long enough on the painful parts, and injects comedy at all the right moments. The crowd I saw this movie with was a Thursday afternoon matinee. The Friday matinee was sold out. The mix was middle aged people like myself (and Lester and Carolyn Burnham in the film) older patrons, and some young people (although I thought they should be in school.) I want to mention that the writer , Alan Ball, whom I haven't heard anything about, has crafted a very witty screenplay which doesn't pander to any one segment of it's intended audience. This is a movie about life, and death, and the beauty which infuses both. The film speaks to all ages, and has "something for everyone". One doesn't feel at unease over the way the film progresses or the dialogue. It all seems real, and might be really depressing, but for the light touch of the director and writer, not to mention the actors, specifically Kevin Spacey and Annete Bening. I am reminded of films by Capra and Wilder.

The film is narrated by Lester Burnham (Spacey) and if this performance isn't nominated I'll eat the videotape of the performance nominated in it's stead. He brings to mind William Holden in Sunset Boulevard, as a rather snide arsehole of a man who has skated through his life without any appreciation for it, or for anything else around him. He is at his crossroads when the film begins. It is his journey, and the audience is enlightened as he is. Annete Bening, who was certainly wasted in In Dreams, plays Spacey's wife, Carolyn, the icily domineering b*tch who used to be funloving and carefree at one point in her life, but can only see continued monetary success as a goal in life when we meet her. At one point, when Lester is about to make love to her, which takes a long time coming, she ruins whatever mood had been established by mentioning that Lester is about to spill beer on the couch. "It's only a couch." Lester proclaims. But Carolyn sees it as a ridiculously expensive Italian silk covered badge of success, not to be ruined by passion. As it's most important theme, American Beauty teaches us that in the nineties, we have lost this passion. We are a tired and boring country, and we need to get this passion back.

The children are rekindling this passion. I can think of no other film in recent memory which treats the teenagers with the dignity they are afforded by Ball and Mendes. Thora Birch, whom might be remembered as young Melanie Griffith in Now and Then or as Sally Ryan Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, is just right as Jane, Lester and Carolyn's daughter. Here is a character who seems not only to be the only "normal character" in the script, but is a flesh and blood human, not a movietoon, like so many other teenagers in film these days. I also enjoyed the acting of newcomer Wes Bentley, as Ricky Fitts, the son of new neighbor Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper.) Ricky and Jane strike up a relationship which is as real and heartwarming , although rather strange, as Lester's and Carolyn's is argumentative and fake for appearances.

The passion which is awakened in young Jane by Ricky, who is "astounded by the beauty" around him and videotapes everything he sees, is also reawakened in Lester by Jane's schoolfriend Angela (Mena Suvari), with whom Lester falls immediately in lust. At once he is aware that his life is a sham, and wants to impress this young blithe spirit. As always with my "reviews" I do not want to give away too much plot. Suffice it to say that each character, including Carolyn, are reawakened to the passion in life by the events which unfold, but do not realize that passion is a foolhardy emotion when it is unbridled, as is wont to cause some damage.

A mention should certainly be made about Chris Cooper, who was so good in John Sayle's Lone Star. He is riveting as Colonel Fitts, Ricky's authoritarian father, who is fooled by his son, and has so broken his wife, that he thinks the world is completely as rigid and set as he wants to make it, and has certainly broken down his family situation so that it is exactly what he wants. When the passion hits him, it proves deadly.

This is a film that certainly speaks to the audience. It is, at once, a somewhat lighthearted look at the nineties, but with the rather hard edge that seems to creep up in the best of nineties cinema. It is a film about facades, and the way that humanity wants but cannot really retain those facades. It is a film about emotion, and the power of emotion when it is let loose. It is a film about beauty, and the fact that beauty can appear where one least expects it to appear.

American Beauty is my pick for Best Picture, and Best Actor, Spacey, and Actress, Bening, at this time.
Sure, there are lots more films to be released before the end of the year. But somehow I knew, when I saw Kevin Spacey in the previews (and I so liked him in both Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and L.A. Confidential) that American Beauty was going to be one of the year's best. So far, in my opinion it is the best.

Before concluding, I do want to say that this film might be offputting to a lot of people. This is in no way a "conventional movie".
I mentioned Capra and Wilder earlier, and with good reason. Their films were "warts and all " portrayals of humankind with all his foibles and faults. At the end of American Beauty, one does not applaud. One reconsiders his place in humanity, and hopefully makes any changes which need to be made.