"Sometimes you look
around you, and there’s so much beauty that you
can hardly stand it."
So says (as I recall) a very naked Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), in trance-like tones,
to a reclining Jane Burnham (Thora Birch), there on the black leather
couch in the young artist’s room, as they watch Ricky’s favorite homemovie,
observing the on-screen movement of a plastic bag on an empty sidewalk, empty save piles
of dead leaves.
His eyes begin to glisten with deeply felt emotion, as the
twosome
stare at what we might consider nothingness, and suddenly it clicks,
and we are hard pressed to keep from embracing the beauty of the
moment – we have come into Ricky’s world. We understand.
American Beauty is indescribable. It is a comedy, a
tragedy, an
art film on a big budget, a thing of majesty. And to say it is
unforgettable pokes merely at the surface of the effects this film
has on it’s viewers. It brings you in, it holds up a mirror to everyone
who will dare watch and speaks clearly, almost as a good friend, who
wraps their arm around your shoulder to give you some sound
advice, as it pronounces to you in all earnestness – "this is your life."
Where Atom Egoyan’s Ice Storm dealt with similar
issues in a
thought provoking manner, it lacked the joy, the warmth, the
desperate yearning that the poor, twisted souls of Beauty seem
to long so earnestly for. Ice Storm held us at a distance,
where Beauty draws us in, to the point of which we know in
our deepest souls, that we are these people. Beneath the
surface, we are each just as unbearably fucked up as these
characters.
But the film does not leave us disheartened – as I said,
it
makes us see that really, no one man is different from any
other – and in that, we leave, having gained strength, seeing
that yes, we are who we are, and the human condition is just
that – it afflicts us all. And we can either laugh or cry – but after
we’ve wiped our eyes of tears of joy or sorrow – the realities remain.
Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are the perfect
war-weary
suburban couple, who relate to each other almost endearingly –
there is little tension – merely indifference. Chris Cooper and
Allison Janney break our hearts a thousand times as a heartsick
war veteran and a suffering saint housewife. Mena Suvari both
repels and draws us to herself as the brash, love-hungry teen.
Watch closely – there is some of you in all these
characters –
not some one you know, a long lost uncle or aunt or best
friend – they are you. They are all of us.
In that, lies the beauty of American Beauty.
