ShareThisBy PHIL VILLARREAL
Happiness is slamming a plate of asparagus against the wall. It's telling your boss to shove it and making a vow right here and now to begin improving the way you look naked.
Happiness, as illustrated by Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty," is submitting to your base urges, if only for a little while. It's about lifting a middle finger to an all-too-oppressive society and bashing down the walls of the prisons we build for ourselves.
But, above all, happiness is a 1970 Pontiac Firebird.
In the 1999 black comedy, winner of the best-picture Oscar, Spacey plays corporate drone Lester Burnham, a slave of suburbia, subject to his mortgage, domineering boss, frigid wife and blase daughter.
Spacey also won the best-actor Oscar for his performance as Lester, who narrates the story with a calm joy that belies the picture of glazed-over, disjointed mystery we see onscreen.
Directed by Sam Mendes, "American Beauty" is a tale of how Lester gets his groove back. Early on, he tells us in narration that, though he doesn't know it at the time, he has less than a year to live. The film borrows from "Death of a Salesman," "Lolita" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," weaving a tapestry of suburban angst, despair and redemption.
Alan Ball, winner of the best original screenplay Oscar, used "American Beauty" as a launching pad that lifted him from the dregs of TV sitcom writing to the lofty heights of HBO, for which he created the landmark drama series "Six Feet Under."
Ball's screenplay sparkles with lines drenched in passive aggression, such as "Honey, I'm so proud of you. I watched you very closely, and you didn't screw up once!" But no matter how cynical "American Beauty" gets, it always counters with hopefulness. Purposely set in a generic locale, the film is meant as a fable that could take place amid suburban sprawl anywhere in America, even next door to you.
Lester awakens from his numbness after his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), drags him to a basketball game in which their disaffected daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), performs a cheer routine. His eyes fixate on Jane's cheermate, Angela (Mena Suvari), a portrait of idyllic beauty and youthful exuberance.
In a creepy portrait of borderline pedophilic obsession, Lester becomes determined to become a man worthy of Angela's sexual attention. He sets to a workout regimen of weights and running, geared to make him "look good naked," then replaces his miserable magazine job with one that will make him happy, flipping burgers at a fast-food joint.
Angela becomes the catalyst for Lester's personal transformation from miserable schlub to joyous optimist. Lester becomes a man who tastes life, rather than simply enduring it.
Many films would settle with Lester's story as the focus, downgrading other characters to nothing more than supporting roles meant to reflect and echo the themes brought up in Lester's journey, but Ball and Mendes craft a multifaceted portrait. Equally affecting as Lester's tale, although less upbeat, is that of Carolyn, who looks on in terror as her facade of materialism and surface organization is exposed for the sham it is. Her story is parallel to Angela's, who is obsessed with her own overstated sexual allure and determined to become a model.
Romance emerges between Jane, who grows increasingly disaffected as her home breaks down, and the boy next door, Ricky (Wes Bentley), an oddball pot dealer with a shady past who prefers to watch life through his camera's viewfinder. Angela is disgusted with Ricky, as much for his eccentricities as for his inexplicable _ to Angela _ refusal to gawk upon her with lust.
Ricky endures drama in his own home, lorded over by his sadistic Marine father, Col. Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper). Ricky finds his release in his camera, which he uses to snatch swatches of beauty he notices in daily life and keep them to himself for inspiration and introspection. His prize films include shots of Angela, as well as a floating plastic bag that seems to dance with the unwritten music of life. Mendes, a stage director, expresses his love of cinema through Ricky's penetrating gaze.
Above all, "American Beauty" is about finding peace and a sense of wonder in the least likely of places, such as inside your tormented mind or, failing that, perhaps a floating plastic bag.
American Beauty (1999). Rated R. Starring Kevin Spacey. Directed by Sam Mendes. 122 minutes. Available on DVD.
(Read Phil Villarreal's blog at scrippsnews.com/philmguy and contact him at pvillarreal(at)azstarnet.com.)
