American Beauty (dir. Sam Mendes, 1999) - EveryFilmIWatch Review

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American Beauty is a great example of film harmony. There isn’t a single element to its formula that lets it down. The directing is excellent, the performances classic, the cinematography graceful, the production design flawless and the soundtrack iconic. If I had to pick a winner, I’d say that the writing is the area in which something truly sensational has been achieved. Alan Ball's screenplay is finely tuned machine: it’s obsessive about the inner-psyches of its cast of characters and delivers pure entertainment value.

Lester Burnham's struggle to find meaning in the suburbs is as hilarious as it is poignant and tragic. The dialogue perfectly walks the tightrope between creating comedic caricatures and lending the characters a much deeper sense of humanity. There are no good guys or bad guys before director Sam Mendes's eyes — his cast are playing real people who have as much potential for harm as they have for beauty bottled up inside them. The film’s resolution is perfectly handled, with Mendes slipping into a Finchian level of technical perfectionism to carry off its complex and precisely paced denouement. The feeling of catharsis that arrives with an ending that you know is coming from the opening 30 seconds of the film is shockingly powerful, enhanced by some subtly brilliant cinematography and the melancholic contentment in Kevin Spacey's voice over.

The film's insightful socio-economic commentary and its expert embodiment of the strangling, suffocating reality of the American suburb put it in amongst only a handful of other films (the likes of There Will Be Blood, Taxi Driver and Once Upon a Time in the West) as a true American classic. Its cultural significance and undeniable craft guarantee it a place in film history. Knocking it off the perch as the finest film by a first-time director will be a tall order.

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.