Early ads for American Beauty put the movie in the same league as such film-class classics as The Graduate, Ordinary People, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – a cuckoo combo if ever there was one and of course not entirely accurate either. Lolita (either version), 10 (or pretty much any Dudley Moore movie) and Heathers (everyone's favorite teen-snuff flick) make a better comparison to American Beauty’s ball of suburban confusion. And it is that lower brow, but higher impact, sensibility that makes American Beauty as interesting, if not ultimately worthwhile.

Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening star as Lester and Carolyn Burnham, an upper-middle-class couple who've succeeded more in growing apart from each other than in excelling at the careers to which they've given ultimate priority. Much to his credit, Spacey here is two things I've never imagined him being: sympathetic and funny. Bening too puts in a strong performance as a perfectionist that even Martha Stewart would say needs to give it a rest. American Beauty also spotlights the nubile charms of Thora Birch, as Jane, the Burnham's spoiled slacker daughter, who longs to have her father killed because he's "too embarrassing to live." Not to be outshined in the forbidden-fruit section is Mena Suvari who plays Jane's fellow cheerleader friend Angela, a supermodel in training bra, whose pom poms and other undeniably unobtainable attributes steal Jane's dad's heart. Wes Bentley is also notable in his subtle portrayal of Ricky, the eighteen-year-old video-voyeur next door with an ex-marine father, aggressively acted by a tight-jawed Chris Cooper, who makes the Great Santini look like Ronald McDonald.

Behind the camera, American Beauty toasts the talents of director Sam Mendes who has had two recent theatrical hits. One was the much-talked-about play The Blue Room, most famous for its leading lady Nicole Kidman, in a bare-all performance that left few eyes wide shut. Mendes also hit paydirt with last year's Tony-award-winning revival of Cabaret. Sadly, Sam's talents haven't entirely crossed over to the big screen. At times his pacing is that of clotting blood. He also doesn't seem quite sure where the drama ends and the comedy begins in screenwriter Alan Ball's debut script. In time, Mendes and Ball could be a partnership to rival the Cohen brothers, but alas, not anytime soon.

Not to totally dismiss American Beauty as a close-but-no-cigar intern effort, the picture does balance such weighty envelopes as socioeconomic pressure and its effect on family development, and sexual frustration, with a healthy helping of adolescent rebellion, even if the adolescent in question happens to be old enough to be your dad. There really is a lot going on here. It's only at the very end when knockout punches are pulled and everything wraps up in a blissful little bundle of peace and contentment that I begin to feel cheated.

American Beauty is truly a ruse by any other name, but is still worth a look, especially when it comes out on video and preferably as a double feature with last year's more sharp-witted and humane Slums of Beverly Hills. Now there's a dysfunctional family feud we can all enjoy.

September 1999