Live Life Team
The Academy Awards ended its first century of motion pictures by awarding its top prize to “American Beauty”. In a tradition of musicals, sagas and epics, the film seems a strange and unlikely addition.
The plot follows what seems like a normal family, the Burnhams. The father, Lester (Kevin Spacey), hates his life. He tells us in voiceover that he’ll be dead in a year, “and in a way, I’m already dead.” He’s tired of playing the dad and husband. Then he falls in love with his daughter’s best friend, Angela. His voiceover tells us, “I feel like I’ve been in a coma for twenty years.” He begins to lash out. He starts working out and smoking pot and then blackmails his employer. However, he directs most of his hostility towards his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening) who is trying to play the happy homemaker, but we find out early on that she is thoroughly unfulfilled as a wife and mother.
Bening is terrific as Carolyn. I can’t think of another actress who can pull off lines to their daughter like, “Good job, Honey. You didn’t screw up once,” while smiling ear to ear.
Of the writing, each character has brimming below his or her exterior a very tangible misery. By the end of the film, the despair each of them are enduring has exploded and driven them to an even more miserable place. And although the film is bleak, the truth it presents is entertaining and beautiful.
