Musings on Life and Love : American Beauty
iView Author: Aditya Mani Jha (West Bengal, India)
Email: amj91288 [at] gmail [dot] com
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Musings on Life and Love : “American Beauty”
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In one of many poignant moments in Sam Mendes’ “American Beauty”, Lester Burnham(Kevin Spacey) watches his new neighbour, teenaged drug-dealer and video enthusiast Ricky tell off his boss at his part-time catering job, saying “You don’t have to pay me.” Upon seeing the boss confused, he puts on a okay-here’s-how-it’s-done tone and says ” I quit. So you don’t have to pay me.”
Seeing this Burnham, who is trapped in a highly mediocre, humdrum job and a stagnant, rotting marriage, says, in unashamed admiration “You’ve just become my hero….”
Emancipation from the clutches of an “ordinary” and “ordered” existence is one of the key themes addressed in this masterpiece of a film. Lester Burnham has nothing to look forward to in his life. He has an average job, he has a career-obesessed wife and he has the All-American Surly Teenage daughter. But this soon changes when he spots Angela, the quintessential blonde, a friend of his daughter’s, and starts to lust after her. In perhaps the most famous visual associated with the film, he envisages her lying naked in a pool of rose petals. From then on he decides to do away with the banal repetitiveness of his life. He quits his job(blackmailing his boss for a fat severance package), starts to work out, and refuses to be pushed around by his wife.
But Lester is not the only one with issues. His wife Carolyn(Annette Bening) is a real estate agent trying her best to succeed at her job, only to find her efforts are in vain. She tries to maintain the facade of normalcy and happiness at home. Their daughter Jane has serious self-esteem issues and has been saving her babysitting money since ten “for a boob job”.
She desperately wants to be “pretty like Angela”. Add to this the new neighbours across the street: An Ex-Marine Corps who is obesessive about discipline, a semingly demented wife and their son Ricky, who has a flourishing drug-dealing business and is fresh out of a mental facility.
The film is choc-a-bloc with moments of startling insight. Ricky explaining the reason why he films(seemingly)everyday stuff, Lester starting to feel good about himself after quitting his job, Jane betraying a shadow of a smile after she sees Ricky compulsively filming her, Carolyn’s pathetic efforts to sell a house…….. these scenes are all carried off with a deft touch. They are very much satirical, yet somehow remain deeply sympathetic towards the characters. The quality of Alan Ball’s writing has to be commended here just as much as the obvious quality of Mendes’ vision.
What really is “ordinary” ? How far would one go to escape an “ordinary” life? Can beauty be found in the seemingly plain things of our everyday life? These are just some of the questions raised here. Twice in the film Angela, who desperately wants to be a model, says “The worst thing in life is to be ordinary”. But then we witness later on how insecure and ordinary she really is. There is much irony on display here, as the superbly done climax shows. Without giving out further spoilers, I would just say that this film is highly recommended for everyone.
The acting is of the highest order. Kevin Spacey shows why he is so highly regarded with a virtuoso performance as Lester Burnham, while Annette Bening is pitch-perfect as Carolyn Burnham. The other supporting acts are terrific too, with Wes Bentley standing out as Ricky, the apparent whack-job next door. To think that this was the debut for both writer Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes…… I had previously written about Mendes’ second film “Road To Perdition”, which I had enjoyed immensely, and I must say that my respect for his work has just shot through the roof. Now I’m gonna try and get my hands on “Jarhead” which was his third and latest film, released in 2005. Mendes fans are eagerly waiting for the Christmas release of “Revolutionary Road” in which he reunites the Titanic troika of
Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Indeed a beauty of a film ! The film has so many poignant scenes !!
Jarhead’s pretty good
What a co-incidence. I was just reading about Mendes’ latest – Revolutionary Road (*ing the Titanic lovers as a couple in a doomed-from-start marriage).
Am really curious about this one. Am trying to get Richard Yates book beforehand. I’d prefer reading it before watching the film.
the movie did not work for me at all, it was crass. i felt it was hyped because of the director-actor combination, but lacked substance. the acting was brilliant, no two ways abt it. but wat i hated was tat, there was not a single sane character in the movie. i dont enjoy a movie tats filled with characters/caricatures but lack depth.
u have kevin spacey who is suffering from inferiority complex and the only thing he looks forward to is his daughter’s friend, tats a sick mind where sex becomes a goal to work for; not family, not wife or children but an object of lust tat too someone who is 20 yrs yngr to him; i can still accept tat coz its not a moral issue. meena suvari, who actually reciprocates spacey’s lust; does she have a mind of her own or wat? annette bening is shallow too; she cheats on her hubby by sleeping arnd instead of confronting the truth and continues to live in a bad marriage. thora birch who is low on confidence and the only thing tat wud cheer her up is a boob-job; and the sudden interest shown by her nerdy neighbour actually turns her on bcos no one has ever seen her in amorous way. the drug peddler who tries to find beauty of life in shooting flying polythene bags and death, how demented. and his army-burdened dad who thinks tat his son is gay.
while i do agree tat america has lots of such families with such characters, but i wud definitely not believe tat all these characters wud be in the same family. yes, u can find these characters but in diff families, u dont bring in all fuckin nerdy chars in the same house; come on .. gimme room to breathe. this is a potboiler situation where u bring in all the wacks/freaks u can think of and put them in the same frame and call it ‘american beauty’
crazyrals …. lol
crazyrals:) it’s always good to read passionate comments on one’s choices…. allow me to respond in kind
The thing with “American Beauty” is that nearly all the characters(with the exception of Ricky) are surface-sane, i.e. one needs to scratch the surface to find their issues.
Lester Burnham is pretty “normal” at his workplace, until the obnoxious,saccharine-dripping boss tries to softball him out of his job. He is “sane” at home, till he views something which promises to lighten up his mediocre existence(namely Mina Suvari)
His wife Carolyn tries desperately to be “normal” (remember her work refrain about projecting “the image of success”)
But when she starts to see what she thinks is Lester’s descent to insanity, she snaps.
His daughter’s storyline is all about fitting in, and not looking like a wack/freak…. but she realises how shallow and pathetic people like her friend Angela(Suvari) are; the apparently perfect people….and that’s when she stops fighting to be normal… in fact she says as much to Angela defiantly
“We’re freaks(Ricky and herself) and we’ll always be…..”
Angela herself is not the well-travelled “experienced” , cool and customer she feigns to be…. she is in fact the most insecure and pathetic character eventually. Note the shot in which a reflection of her sobbing is captured after Ricky calls her “really ugly” and “insecure” and alleges that she only hung out with Jane(Thora Birch) because it made her feel better about herself….. her insecurity leads her into the arms of Lester Burnham, who she thinks is the typical man-of-the-world. Plus, she is something unique and special to him, and that is all she has ever wanted….. she desperately wants to escape being “ordinary”
The reverse process takes place with Ricky, whose inner life is shrouded in mystery, right from the word go. He seems very much to be the Wacko with a capital W. But his sensitive side comes as a gentle reminder to us that the reverse is true sometimes too: apparent nutcases sometimes turn out to be “good eggs”, as Wodehouse said.
I particularly liked the heavily ironic ending: Finally Lester had a moment of true bliss and happines… and just when he is musing upon his new state of mind…his life ends… reminds me of an Ernest Hemingway story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
Oh, and about the plastic bag, writer Alan Ball once saw a plastic bag lazily wandering about in the wind near the World Trade Center(!)…. and that is when he had an epiphany… to write the film!
Again, my apologies for the rant-like reply!
Very nice piece here, Aditya. I loved the film too, and plan to revisit it soon.
Hi folks, I stumbled across your conversation and though I might add….
Firstly, Crazyrals, I hear what you are saying, and I agree with you in part.
It seems you maybe betraying your own argument a little though by putting it across how you have. You obviously took onboard the movie for the most part and wether you appreciated it as it was presented or not, what you have said is both valid and off the mark.
If I might add to your argument, I also think it is in some ways quite lazy to place such a variety of clearly affected people on screen together, or on a page for that matter. It is almost like cheating by way that every character is so vividly loaded with material, that they are all immediatley engaging. I also agree that this can be exhausting at times, and makes the movie less enjoyable.
Not to contradict myself, but I do feel there is a real skill evident here in how these people are presented through the course of the movie. There is restraint shown in how their interactions and experiences are kept steadily simmering throughout without boiling over as it were. What I mean is that it is a feat in itself to gather such a collection of misfits, and to keep them all in check, while developing a plot, without loosing control of them all.
I have to say, I think the score is very important in keeping things suitably ventilated as things play out, almost dispersing the intensity of some scenes with the jingling and almost playful air, only to heighten the effect of other scenes with the unmistakably heartbreaking string arrangement…another clearly skillful turn.
It’s a very stylish movie….when I first watched it, it was a visual feast, but having rewatched it recently, I was a little disappointed at how heavy handed it seemed. Possibly a change in my own perspectives, but lets not forget, a movie like this is all about amplifying the everyday things and having the viewer relate in small ways to these people, thus exciting them all the more when the characters have these crazy moments on screen.
Personally I like the movie, it is alot of fun and has some outstanding moments, with some great performances from all, but I really think the choice of cramming in all that dysfunction at every turn, has placed it just the other side of believable and proved a hinderance in it becoming a truly enduring classic.
C.
Have seen this film quite quite some time back and I remember not having liked it at all. Found it so very over-rated. Forgot about it unitl I read this post and the comments further down and am getting swayed towards finding it somewhat good. This so goes against my intial thoughts and its a write-up here.
I’ve to see this film again.
@crazyrals : lol…
Felt that this movie was a trifle over rated. Liked it mostly for Kevin Spacey’s performance. Some how i found Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm, a better depiction of American suburbia.
@ Arthi V: Do yourself a favor and watch the movie again. I watched the movie because I had heard, ‘Usme bahut scenes hai yaar’(I was a desperate teenager then!) and I watched it exactly for the same reason.
.But, was deeply touched when the end credits rolled..!!
Beautiful movie.!
@Tanul: ‘Usme bahut scenes hai yaar…’
LOL!
@ Tanul – Usme bahut scenes hai yaar’(I was a desperate teenager then!) – :-) :-) :-)…..
LOL! Tanul Rocks!!!!!
@Arthi – Happy that my article could persuade at least one person to give the film another chance..
@AMJha:thanx for trying to explain the movie; but i said tat the movie did not work for me, i did not say tat i didn’t get the movie. anyways…
I would watch this movie again and again for the plastc bag scene…
I feel like crying when I watch this scene..
Alan Ball story excellent, Thomson Newman music just fits the scene. I want see the life the way Ricky Fitts sees in the film