Movie #24 - American Beauty

American Beauty
DreamWorks
1999 - Rated R - 2 hr 2 min
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, and Chris Cooper



Now here's an Oscar-winner I can get behind. I love this movie, from beginning to end. Well written, great cast, spot-on dialogue, artistically filmed (without going overboard), and all those rose petals. Really, after watching this movie, can you ever look at rose petals the same way?

I first saw this movie in the theater and loved every thing about it. From the instant knowledge that Lester Burnham is not long for this world, to the disintegrating marriage right before your eyes, to the damn plastic bag. I'm not sure I get the whole plastic bag thing, but whatever. Wes Bentley and Thora Birch play some of the world's first emo kids and that's pretty cool, okay? Let them be emo however they like.

The suspense is beautifully crafted in this movie. You know he's going to die, so you spend the first half of the movie trying to figure out how. By the time you get to his narrated line about "the day I died," you've forgotten. Oh my God! It's going to happen soon! And then even up to the moment it happens, you're still wondering when, when! How? And then - holy crap! And of course, you can't figure out who it was until that helpful montage uncovers the killer. So many people have motives... it could've been any one of them!

And still, this movie is not a thriller or a mystery. It's just a story about the last year in a man's ordinary life. It's just about him. And it's so enjoyable to watch, even when you do know what's going to happen.