Lilli Keeve
“Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it,” says Wes Bentley’s Ricky in American Beauty. At the 2000 Oscars, Sam Mendes’ debut feature film swept the ceremony that night, winning five awards (Best Picture, Kevin Spacey for Best Actor, Sam Mendes for Best Director, Alan Ball for Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography). American Beauty captures a slice of American suburbia that is a mere facade of the inner turmoil, struggles, and deeper desires its characters confront and come to terms with. Ball was familiar with this world, as he grew up in a suburb—and is a bleak dystopia with complex characters constantly yearning to be a better and different version of who they already are. Many have argued that the film is simply a product of its time (a valid conjecture) but that doesn’t excuse some of its morally murky, controversial subject matter. In some respects, the movie hasn’t aged well and continues to be discussed, dissected, and analyzed; in others, it’s a moving and spiritually fueled piece of art that continues to captivate.
A 2019 Time magazine article critiqued American Beauty and elaborated how many came to dislike the lauded film. In particular, the sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey from various young men that surfaced in the past few years harm the movie’s image more than anything. These real-life events make Lester an unsatisfied, horny predator, narrowing the film down to solely being about “a privileged white guy who feels bad about himself and tries to rectify that by exploding his life—only to lose it all in the end.” In 1999, Lester’s moral dilemma may have seemed relatable, but, in 2024, it’s just pathetic.
The Guardian also published a piece in 2019 that discussed how Sam Mendes’ film was an unpopular contender for the Best Picture race, considering its competition included iconic cinematic heavyweights such as Lasse Hallström and Michael Mann. Considering 1999 is deemed one of the best years in cinema history, American Beauty is a debatable choice to represent it as the Oscar winner choice, but the film’s honest and sentimental portrayal of the sinister underbelly of suburbia makes it memorable despite its shortcomings.
Even though American Beauty was released in 1999, some of its themes and issues persist in modern-day America. The search for identity in a consumer-driven society where perfection is idealized resonates even more profoundly in the insidious age of constant social media scrolling and keeping tabs on influencers and celebrities. The status-obsessed Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) constantly compares her success (or lack thereof) to others in the real estate industry, pretending to act strong, confident, and unbothered when she suffers on the inside and rarely shows her vulnerability to anyone. She’s a ticking time bomb whose value is placed on material objects, looks, and status, instead of forming genuine connections and living a simple existence, believing wealth equates to monetary success and moving up the proverbial social ladder.
On the other hand, the middle-aged, egoless Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), is seen by everyone in his life as a loser. He hates his job, and his wife, and can’t form a meaningful bond with his angsty daughter, Jane (Thora Birch). His life seems worthless until he becomes infatuated with Jane’s attractive cheerleader friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). Given the disturbing news unveiled in Spacey’s private life, Lester’s predatory behavior is creepy and unsettling. In 2021, Suvari opened up to Entertainment Weekly about an awkward moment with Spacey on a bed while filming American Beauty, calling it “weird and unusual.”
It’s even more perturbing considering Lester’s newfound awakening and purpose in his life to quit his job, bulk up, and do things that make him feel happy and liberated again (smoking weed, working at a burger joint, buying the car of his dreams) stems from his yearning for Angela. The typical trope of the beautiful, youthful, and sexually appealing female as the catalyst for a man’s internal and external change draws parallels to Humbert Humbert’s obsession with 12-year-old Dolores Haze in Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita. Romanticizing and fantasizing about a pure girl to fulfill male desire is not only an outdated concept, but it’s also quite gross. Lester is forever a teenager trapped in an adult’s body, and his attitude explicitly showcases his unseriousness about life, and reverting to a carefree young man. The concept of pedophilia regarding Lester’s sexually explicit interest in a burgeoning young woman ages poorly, and the movie clearly raises the question of this taboo but never succinctly comments on it. Interestingly enough, Bill Clinton’s shocking affair with his 22-year-old secretary, Monica Lewinsky, was made known to the public a year before the film came out, and Adrian Lyne’s silver-screen adaptation of Lolita came out in 1997.
Jane mostly veers away from the conventional construct of a suburban high school girl. Ironically, she is saving her money for a breast implant procedure, so even she succumbs to the insidious suburban ideals of perfection. She hangs out with Angela who cares about what everyone thinks of her and lies about almost anything to seem cool. Angela is beautiful and popular and pretends to be confident, boasting about all the guys she has slept with. In actuality, she’s deeply insecure and lonely with a fear of being ordinary and is also a virgin. Just like Carolyn (who has been described as shrill and pretentious), Angela puts on a facade, appearing how others’ expect her to. Still, the pressure of upholding that standard is exhausting. In a scene where Angela and Lester become intimate with each other, it’s the first time she feels seen, and exhibiting that vulnerability is terrifying. Lester shares his father-like sensitivity with Angela and realizes she’s just a child. The entire fantasy he formed in his head was wrong and the sensuous illusion is shattered in a matter of fleeting moments.
Another trope that has not aged well pertains to Ricky’s father, Colonel Frank Fitts. Frank is physically and mentally abusive, homophobic, and harbors a deep secret of his own…he’s actually gay. The closeted and rampantly violent male who takes out his misplaced aggression and judgment on others makes the movie, indeed, homophobic—it gets progressively worse when Frank murders Lester after denying his advances. Here’s yet another harmful trope being perpetuated by making a tormented man struggling with his sexuality into little more than a cardboard-cutout vengeful villain.
The brilliance of Ball’s American Beauty screenplay lies in his special ability to make the audience sympathize with Lester. Depending on how his evolution is perceived, Lester isn’t the film’s antagonist, and, by the end, is a victim of his unforeseen demise. While there are various definitions of what beauty displays itself as in the film, the literal American beauty for Lester lies within the little moments of his existence that make life worth living, moments he never truly noticed before.
Ball’s characters are truthful representations of humans as messy and flawed individuals. They do their best despite the societal pressures and expectations weighing upon them and do not make ethically sound decisions. Ball’s screenplay asks the fundamental questions: How do others see them and how do they see themselves? The search for identity is a constant theme of the film, as every character grapples with profoundly realistic emotions, thoughts, and feelings.
A myriad of issues exist within the context of American Beauty’s plot that, over time, illustrate darker, more convoluted ideas surrounding the ideals of the American dream. Lester only realizes how lucky he is through his adolescent crush on Angela and that he has everything he could have ever wanted (or needed). Sadly, when he comes to this formative realization it’s too late. The poignant message of American Beauty is to stop and smell the roses and appreciate the smallest things in life because they might be gone one day. The real beauty lies in appreciating what you have, instead of chasing after an empty fantasy or notion of what you think might satisfy you.
