A truly fascinating film that deals with the beauty that lies behind everything in
life, even if we can't see it. It handles the dysfunctional, phoney suburban
lifestyle so often lampooned in modern movies with a surprisingly delicate touch,
layering each character with a depth so often lacking in today's films. The main
lesson of the movie comes not from the main character, a bored, numbed family man
played by talented Kevin Spacey, but from his drug dealing next-door neighbour, who,
through the clinical electronic eye of his video camera, is able to see the
awe-inspiring beauty that lies beneath everything in the world, from a plastic bag
been blown around by the wind, to a pattern of dirt left from someone's shoe, to the
spray of blood that erupts from Kevin Spacey's head as he gets shot with a 9mm
handgun at the end of the film. Whoops. I guess I shouldn't have told you that, huh?
Well, that's what you get for reading a review about a wussy movie. Honestly, there
were practically no zombies in the entire flick, and it's almost two hours long! But
on the plus side, the touching, intellectual depth of the film is emphasized by
exactly three nekkid breasts, so I wasn't completely disappointed. Anyway, before his
head explodes like a crashed car in a Hollywood blockbuster, Spacey is a hollow-eyed
workaholic, a typical middle class loser who meekly takes his wife's abuse in
between bouts of hostility from his daughter. However, a brief brush with pedophilia
manages to bring him out of his shell, and he becomes rejuvenated and reborn, a
transformation symbolised throughout the film by these brilliantly red rose petals
that keep popping out of 17 year-old love interest Mena Suvari's private areas. In
fact, every character in the movie undergoes some sort of transformation, for better
or for worse, and when you leave the theatre, you will feel as if you yourself have
changed, as if something inside you has been forever altered. I say 'you', of course,
because I only ever get that feeling after I've eaten many Skittles and ruptured my
intestinal wall, but you get the idea. Although American Beauty is a great movie, there
are a few moments when it feels a little forced, and that prevents it from reaching the
heights of true film greatness alongside such classics as Casablanca, Gone With The Wind,
Evil Dead II, and of course Fist of Gammara IV: The Bloodening.
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