American Beauty Review

Few films have traveled this far from where they landed. In 1999 it is the year's consensus pick, the best received title at Toronto and close to a sweep at the Oscars. Within a decade it is the standard example whenever critics want to name an overrated Best Picture winner, and the reasons are worth separating. What still works is the craft. Conrad Hall shoots suburbia in deep reds against wet gray and gives the film a formal control the writing never earns, and Sam Mendes brings stage discipline to the blocking.

Annette Bening is the best thing in it and always was, playing a woman whose self loathing runs on a sales technique, and the moment where she slaps herself in an empty house is the most honest thing on screen. Kevin Spacey is precisely cast for a role the film wants you to enjoy, which is part of the modern problem. What has curdled is the argument. Alan Ball's screenplay is certain that the suburbs are a prison and that only the boy with the camcorder can see clearly, and it says so out loud, repeatedly, in speeches.

The plastic bag is the case for the prosecution. The Colonel's arc converts a real subject into a plot mechanism. Critics still rate the film well and rate it lower every year, which is roughly where we land: superbly made, beautifully acted, and considerably less wise than it believes itself to be.