How does American Beauty stand up today?
Please note: this film is more than twenty years old, so I assume you’ve already seen it if you want to, but there are spoilers in this article.
When American Beauty was released in 1999, it was widely lauded and few people begrudged the five Oscars it took home. It was praised for its appeal to both middle-aged and younger viewers.
It captures the angst of forty-two-year-old Lester Burnham, who wonders if life has any more to offer except work, retirement, and a slow decline towards death. He kicks against inevitability by working out, smoking cannabis, and lusting after his daughter’s pretty friend. At eighteen, his daughter Jane is just as confused and angry about what life has to offer. Her only certainty is that she doesn’t want to be like her parents. She rebels by getting together with Ricky, the weird guy next door, so they can share their love of the morbid and transgressive.
Watching the film again recently, though, I was struck by how both these plot strands are the fantasies of a middle-aged man. Lester fancies an eighteen-year-old, which is icky but plausible. Where we get into pure fantasy is when she fancies him right back. I’m sure many a man in his forties has sucked in his paunch, combed over the bald patch, and wondered if his daughter’s friends find him attractive. No, they don’t. At best, they think you’re funny; at worst, creepy. An uncomfortable aspect of the film is that the audience is invited to leer along with Lester. In the end, he decides not to take advantage of the young girl, but not before we’ve had a good look at her breasts.
The story about the two young people smacks of another fantasy, this time about what should have happened in the past. One advantage of being a writer is you can put right the things that went wrong in real life. (When my characters get into arguments, they actually deliver the devastating comebacks that I thought of too late.) You remember the sexy goth girl at school? She wore black eye shadow, listened to the Sisters of Mercy, and wrote poems about the futility of existence. What she should have done was realise you were equally strange and fall into your arms. Somehow, she neglected to do this and went off with the rugby player who listened to Bryan Adams and thought poetry was a bit gay. But in the film, everything goes as it should and the two emo teenagers get together. In some ways, this part is even creepier than the lust-across-generations story. Ricky films Jane without her consent. Instead of taking out a restraining order, she starts a relationship with him. What sort of message does that send?
For all my issues with this film, I found much to admire in it. It’s well made. No one who’s seen Skyfall will doubt Sam Mendes is a great director. The performances are uniformly excellent. Whatever Kevin Spacey may or may not have done in his private life, there’s no denying the man can act. It was written by Alan Ball, who’s gay. I have to give him credit for so accurately tapping into middle-aged straight men’s wish-fulfilment. His screenplay crackles with good lines: “Today I quit my job. Then, I told my boss to go fuck himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost $60,000. Pass the asparagus.”