on my first and only viewing of this movie that most of you consiter a classic, i didnt get any of it.
i saw it as a borring movie about kevin spacey's very wierd family, he is in love with his teenage daughters best friend and then after his wife sees or finds out that he tried to have sex with the friend, his wife shoots him at the end. then we have his daughter who is being spyed on by some next door neighbor who video tapes her from his house (his dad is abusive from what i saw). and then there is that famous roses coming out of the best friends top (i know it was a dream but i dont get the point of it)

this is all i got from it, so unless there is some hidden meaning or i wasnt paying that much attention, how is this the best movie of 99?? my mom didnt get it either, if im missing alot, then ill rent the dvd. (i saw it when hbo played it non stop.

Yep.That's the plot right there.

To bad his wife didnt shoot him,watch it again please.

That's what I was thinking, but I'm not sure it would help.

Rypro, I swear, this really isn't intended as a flame, but I really don't see how you could have been paying much attention to "American Beauty" if you thought the wife shot the Kevin Spacey character. You see the killer wearing a blood-soaked shirt, removing his gloves after the crime. It's no wonder you didn't "get" the movie.

the way i remeber was that the wife was driving up to the house mumbling something or listening to the radio (havent seen the movie in a while plus i was a little tired so maybe thats why i thought the wife did it), and then i saw a gun in her glove compartment, and then she drives up, and somebody shoots him. im guessing because of the fact that you mentioned about being a man; that it was the wierd guy spying on the daughter's abusive dad?

and can someone please explain the plot
also my mom also thought it was the wife

Kevin Spacey was the girl's father. The abusive guy was the father of the "weird" guy (who was actually about the only one in the movie who had his act together).

Your memories of this movie are so muddled, you probably really ought to watch it again when you aren't so tired. If you have any questions at that point, then we can help you out.

If you do watch it again, don't make the mistake of thinking the Kevin Spacey character is in love with his daughter's friend. He has a crush on her, is obsessed with her, but that isn't the same thing as love, and he comes to realize that later in the movie.

I saw his obsession with Angela as simply one facet of his regressing to the last time he remembered really being happy in his life, which was when he was young, lifting weights, smoking pot, chasing high school girls.

He didn't have a care in the world back then, unlike the problems he's faced with as an adult: a crappy dead-end job that he's on the brink of losing, an unhappy marriage and an unhappy teenager.

OT, but have you ever heard of Capital Letters Rypro?

im too lazy to use them but if you want me to use capital letters, I will.

Yes, that would help.

I don't think that i meantioned that Kevin Spacey's character was abusive, it's just that I don't know the character's names so it might have been a little confusing for some.

One of the more inspirational films I have ever seen. Yes, you should try watching it again.

There's really no way to ask this without it coming out wrong, but how old are you, Rypro? There are many films I saw in my youth that I didn't fully appreciate (or even completely understand) until I got older. This is that style of film, with very adult themes about life, and I wonder if I had seen it at a young age if I would fully grasp what they were getting at (some things you just have to live through to appreciate). I may be completely off-base here, but from the way you're asking about it, that's the initial impression I get. If you were paying attention to the film and didn't "get" it, it may be something to revisit in a few years. If you did "get" it but just didn't like it, then that's something else entirely. Hope you don't mind my presumption with this post.

das

i saw it about 2 years ago when HBO first debuted it, and at that time the only movies I was into was action flicks and gross out comedies (age 14 or 15 at the time, i am now 17), and I was not a member of the forums. Now to some degree, i have been more able to get into, lets just say different movies.

• Quoth Rypro 525 •<HR SIZE=1>i saw it about 2 years ago when HBO first debuted it, and at that time the only movies I was into was action flicks and gross out comedies (age 14 or 15 at the time, i am now 17), and I was not a member of the forums. Now to some degree, i have been more able to get into, lets just say different movies. <HR SIZE=1>

Ah, then you definitely need to watch it again at some point in the future. Your taste in film and television is going through a substantial growth phase. You may still not like it at all, but I think you'll get a lot more out of it with a second viewing. Give it some time and check it out again ... with luck, you'll find it to be as poignant and important a film as many of us find it to be.

das

Excellent description

American Beauty is my favourite movie of all time, and I have watched it many times. It's quite a simple movie, even though it contains a very intense plot.

Rypro, I agree with das.

I am only 18, but I got into film at a really early age. Thank God I had a liberalized mother who knew that I could "handle" real world ideas. I basically didn't have to sneak out to a friends house to see an R rated film at 12 or 13 (they snuck to mine). She trusted me...and with that trust, I grew up (I believe) to be a structured person with good natured ideals. Basically, by today's "conservative standards", you won't ever see me blowing up anything...no matter how much they say entertainment is the breathing ground for it

Off that,

American Beauty is an excellent film that while considered a dramatic film, has every bit of a comedic undertone.

I find it to be funnier than a lot of the comedies out there. As one poster put it, like a satire of the "average family".

This film is in no way "borring". It is anything but. Even the viewer who doesn't like American Beauty can say it is "borring".

I won't give a complete review, because you can get that anywhere (numerous threads in this very forum) but please, do watch it again.

Annette Bening got jipped for Best Actress. Hilary Swank was good though.

Peter Gallagher rules. He is the King!

Here's my favorite review of AB - it's insightful AND hilarious:

American Beauty was a success not for its quality as a unique (or even interesting) story, but for its remarkable ability to sucker all you idiots into liking it. Sorry to be so blunt, but if this is The Best Movie of The Year, it sure must've been a horrible f**king year. God, where do I begin? There's so much to make fun of.

I can just see some teary-eyed Hollywood executive sobbing, "this movie touches on all the issues--this movie is about American life!" And it does, you know. We see MATERIALISM IN ACTION when beer won't be spilled on a couch, we see REBELLING AGAINST SOCIETY with Spacey's refusal to live out expectations, we see THOSE NAUGHTY SUPERFICIAL PEOPLE acted out by the "dumb blonde" character, and we even see the results of 'growing up' and becoming older and moving to the suburbs!

Unfortunately, the mere act of touching on BIG ISSUES is in no way interesting OR original--particularly when nothing is actually said or realized. The effect is basically a cinematic version of Billy Joel's crappy We Didn't Start The Fire, in which he just reads out dozens of problems on a big list. I can read the newspaper for that, thanks.

If you haven't seen this vomit, here's a quick summary: two self-centered (apparently AVERAGE AMERICAN SUBURBAN) parents live a depressed, redundant life until the father gets a boner because of his daughter's 16-year-old schoolmate and masturbates about her. Apparently this 16-year-old girl has revitalized him in ways that nothing ever could, and he becomes totally goofy, man. He breaks all the rules. F**k the man. He quits his job! He has no structure! Life is crazy! And chaos ensues with neighbors, drugs, homosexuality, naked breasts, adultery, and the never-ever-ever-let's-'em-down Hollywood climax, MURDER!

Yeah, I know--that plot sounds like a winner. Basically it's targeted to depressed middle-aged losers who revel in the "what have I become?!? Old?!!"-self-appearance based paranoia every waking minute of their lives. I guess there's a lot of you pathetic, hopeless people. Life sure is awful, isn't it?

What's particularly strange about this movie, really, is that although the characters are clearly intended to represent "The American Experience", the actual lives of the characters are painfully EXAGGERATED and RIDICULOUS. Seriously. This sh*t is basically like an episode of Jerry Springer, with ANGSTY GOTH GIRL SHE HATES HER PARENTS GRR and DRUG-DEALER-$40,000-BOYFRIEND and NAZI-EX-MILITARY-BEAT-MY-SON FATHER and CAREER-DRIVEN SCREAM-A-LOT MOM and HIPPIE-REBEL-F**K-THE-SYSTEM DAD and DUMB BLONDE SEX-OBSESSED CHEERLEADER. I've seen more human-like characters on the front of my Rice Crispies cereal box. Anyone who didn't notice these excessively generic identities got suckered in... by the... pseudo-meaningful... dialogue... and its... excessive... use of... dramatic pause... as a... vehicle...

Or maybe you feel like "a freak", too, man, like that girl. You know, the girl who was basically GOTH except never explicitly referred to as such. I just wish the movie provided an explanation of why this tortured gothic soul was a CHEERLEADER. I wouldn't normally harp on such a minor, lamely unexplained detail, except this is a great metaphor for the entire movie: everything is completely over-extended to ADVANCE THE STORY, regardless of how unrealistic, uninsightful, and corny it is. The cheerleader sequence exists simply to have a convenient scene for the father to have his first child-molestation fantasy, a-blazin' with that damn ROSE PETAL sh*t.

DO YOU GUYS GET THE SYBOLISM? THE BEAUTY OF A ROSE, SYMBOLIC OF LUST. I don't think there's a single man in America who'd ever have a child molestation fantasy involving a girl covered in rose-petals. Still, they were there a-plenty. God, were they ever there. Did you happen to forget about them? Don't worry, we are treated to THREE MORE GREAT SCENES showing her naked body covered with rose petals galore!

Oh, and don't worry, gang. We, of course, see her unobstructed, roseless breasts by the end of the movie! American Beauty wouldn't let us enjoy a movie without naked breasts. Where would the meaning be without them? And, yeah, we see the goth girl's naked breasts, too. And, as an added bonus, for no justified reason whatsoever. I guess they're just thinking: she's got nice breasts! She's in a movie! Why not?

The goth girl's (Thora Birch) casting was particularly amusing because she's actually quite attractive. It's almost as if the casting agent, director, and producer uniformly decided to entirely deny the point of her character--a slightly-ugly freak of some sort. Or, more retarded, maybe they were trying to be sneaky: "she's actually attractive, so when we represent her as having a bad self-image, people will say BUT SHE'S NOT REALLY UGLY! SHE IS HOT!! MAYBE THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE HOT THAT THINK THEY ARE UGLY!!" Which is true, of course, but it really takes away from any sort of potentially richer meaning. If they had cast a conventionally 'ugly' character, like someone somewhat overweight--or ugly--or even PLAIN looking, hey! There would've been much more of a point to her character. But, since she was hot, she just looked like an idiot. She fit in well.

Her boyfriend is a kooky nut who manages to find "BEAUTY" in almost EVERY GOSH DARN THING (especially his conventionally attractive goth girlfriend with large breasts), you know. I considered walking out of the movie during that embarassing scene with the video-taped dancing bag. That ****ing scene made every film-geek in the world feel exactly like every computer-geek felt after watching You've Got Mail: ridiculous, cliche, and entirely misrepresented. I doubt mockery was the intention sassy-Brit director Sam Mendes was going for with that scene, but that's exactly what it was.

Clearly this movie proves that British guys should direct any movies about American life. I mean, hey, just look at how he directed BEST ACTOR OF THE YEAR, can-do-no-wrong Kevin Spacey in this role: badly. Seriously. While his zombie-like efforts were initially justified because of the "depressed" nature of the character from the beginning, we (well, I guess just me? I really hope not) soon see this schtick never ends. While some may like Spacey's walk-through-the-movie-am-I-even-awake? style, this is not BEST ACTOR material, regardless of how arbitrary and empty the oscars actually are (other than for the actor's paycheck).

While Kevin Spacey's performance was toned down to near-boredom, every other character was completely over-dramatized, and, quite frankly, pathetic. Especially his wife, who is hysterically animated like a cartoon for virtually the entire movie. Perhaps that's JUST HOW SHE WAS, man, but every character was basically acting out a soap-opera level melodrama, but perhaps that's JUST HOW THEY ALL WERE, man. You can't blame them, really, since they were basically living in a Jerry Springer level of reality. Maybe that's Sam Mendes's world, who knows?

Honestly: this melodramatic, bad acting wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much if the director/screenwriter/whatever had chosen to be even somewhat consistent in the overall tone. Perhaps it's the fact that it's his first movie, and he has a stage director background... so maybe this sort of ambiguity between drama and comedy flies better in that medium. Here, it's just juvenile. The drama was insincere, empty, and pathetic: remember when the mother finds her husband dead and starts crying in the closet? I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be crying or laughing--and I wasn't doing either. The excessive "humor" of the movie took away from anything that might've struck me as heavy. Not even the token "sad music" could bring me to feel bad when Kevin Spacey was MURDERED. I was actually hoping that I could have some time in the film where Kevin Spacey wasn't on screen, but alas, no luck. The movie was over.

In short, the BIG ISSUES that this movie touches on with its little bitty fingers (and then quickly runs away from) needed to have a fundamental choice made: is this a satire or a drama? Now, I hate generic Hollywood classifications as much as the next guy, so we could ask Why Can't A Movie Be Both? Good question: it most certainly can. Perhaps for some people this abiguity was kind of 'existential' and it gave them a philosophical boner--but for me (someone who enjoys deviation from conventional storytelling), this attempt at "GREAT MEANING" was entirely ruined by it; The drama made the comedy trite, and the comedy made the drama insincere.

Perhaps screenwriter Alan Ball should watch some surrealist films, learn something about subtlety, and try again. Until he does, all his movies are going to resemble bad versions of '80s angst favorite John Hughs movies--and that's exactly what American Beauty is--"wacky situations" about angsty teens and ineffectual parents.

After discussing with friends, I've determined the main focus of why people "like" this movie has little to do with the content and much more to do with themes. Touting lines like "In this world full of awful Hollywood movies, here's one that actually tried to be different!" is basically an admission that the movie sucked, but they can't think of anything better. Which is really a shame, but quite representative of the relentless slop that we're fed.

Movies like this remind me of the ol' story of The Emperor's New Clothes, except The Emperor is also a mentally retarded child. And in American Beauty, he's just buck naked and flailing about. Here's the punch line: no matter what clothes The Emperor is wearing, he is still an idiot, and it's our obligation to let him know. Otherwise we're just not being honest.

I can't believe the reviewer didn't mention all the smoking. Except for that, AB could have been a good movie.

Generally, it is best to try and review/discuss films right after you've seen them...not two years later. The result tends to be more coherant and meaningful.

I still can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

But either way, I feel the oposite of this is true for me.

After time, a film has had time to sink in and you can look back on it with context and more depth (especially if you've seen it more than once, which time allows for).

Coming up with a valid opinon on a film right after viewing it is like making up your opinion on a person upon first meeting them:
you may be right about the shallow ones, but not the deeper ones.

How about the profanity? There were some in there right?
What'd our DJ Cam Man score this one anyway?

If none of the answers here satisfy you, you could always read the screenplay. Here's an early draft of it: http://scifiscripts.name2host.com/msol/A_B.html

I'm watching tonight, hopefully, I will enjoy it more a second time and then eventually buy it. BTW, is the dts track really necessary for a movie like this.

Again, why don't you watch the movie before passing judgment? DTS isn't just for explosions and gunshots whizzing past your head.