There is a movie that, frankly, after nearly 1,500 reviews, I am surprised I have not covered.  It is American Beauty (1999).  While it is not the most popular of films, it has gained some attention outside of those cinephiles who rightly recognize the quality of its production, and mostly not in a flattering light.  To be fair to the naysayers, there is a lot of material in it that makes it easy fodder for ridicule.  Take Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), for example, the teenage boy that lives next door to the Burnhams, the family on which the proceedings are focused.  In addition to selling marijuana, he films people in a manner that borders on stalking.  Perhaps the rest of what I will say will put this in context, but it does not make for positive feelings.  This could provide a reason for why I have not addressed this Academy Award winner for Best Picture, but my astonishment is related to the fact that it was the first movie that ever made me cry.  Having read what I have already written about it, this might seem puzzling.  As I go along, this might turn into alarm.  Yet, there is something to be taken from this movie that is no less important.  What I am not unsure of nearly a quarter of a century later is whether it is worth viewing to get it.

If you are familiar with my treatments, you know that I spoil films with my synopses, and American Beauty will be no different.  However, it tells you what is going to happen practically from the beginning.  After a home video segment with the aforementioned Wes filming his girlfriend, Jane Burnham (Thora Birch), talking about wanting to kill her dad, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), Lester comes in a narration and says he will be dead in a year.  We then go back one turn of the calendar, a time when Lester is feeling, as he puts it, “sedated.”  What he is realizing is that life is not what he had thought it would be when he is younger, before he had all the trappings of upper-middle-class success.  He is moderately successful in his own job, though it is increasingly becoming unfulfilling.  His wife, Carolyn Burnham (Annette Benning), cares more about her real-estate business and projecting an aura of prosperity.  Jane is entering those high school years when parents are annoying, and their well-meaning dopiness does nothing to help the situation.  There are two occurrences that are about to change everything.  The first is when Carolyn and Lester go to see a dance performance by Jane’s troupe at her high school’s basketball game.  Alongside their daughter is her best friend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari).  As soon as Lester sees her, he dreams and thinks every inappropriate thought you can imagine about her.  I say this as short hand for a number of awful musings that he later conjures, and to which we are subjected.  She does not help the situation when she sees the fact that he is attracted to her, encourages his behavior, and teases Jane about it.  The other big event is the Fitts family moving in next door.  Not long after their arrival, Ricky is spotted obviously filming Jane as she returns from the just described performance.  He becomes important to Jane and Lester, but for different reasons.  During a gathering of local real-estate executives that Lester attends with Carolyn, Ricky introduces himself and shortly thereafter lets it slip that he deals pot.  They then retire to the alley behind the venue where they share a joint.  When Ricky’s boss catches them, the teenager promptly quits.  Lester is impressed, by the young man’s poise and for reintroducing him to a substance he had not used for a few decades.  Lester sees in Ricky a confidence he wished he possessed, and will spend much of the rest of the movie trying to recapture.  As for Jane, Ricky finds her “interesting,” as he first describes it when she asks him to stop recording her.  He complies, saying that he did not mean to frighten her, and this appears to help her to be less guarded.  Angela continues to see him as a “freak,” and as Jane’s feelings for Ricky grow, Angela and Jane’s friendship begins to fracture.  As this takes place, Carolyn starts an affair with Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), the self-proclaimed local real estate king.  Meanwhile, Lester quits his job in order to dedicate more time to working out, inspired to do so by Angela, and smoking weed.  As you can probably tell, this makes for a volatile mix, and this is without yet discussing Colonel Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper), Ricky’s father.  He routinely beats his son for suspected drug use and whenever he becomes suspicious of Ricky’s other actions.  This becomes a bigger issue when he looks through his window and into the Burnham’s house, mistaking a drug deal for Ricky, er . . . pleasuring Lester.  In a rage, Colonel Fitts tells his son to leave, something Ricky is all too happy to do.  Before he goes for good, he asks Jane to come with him.  Angela, who is there to spend the night, calls out Jane, and this is the last straw for their friendship as Jane agrees to depart with Ricky.  While this takes place, Colonel Fitts confronts Lester, kissing his neighbor and revealing that the former Marine is a closeted homosexual.  Confused by Lester’s denial, Colonel Fitts returns to his home and Lester goes inside.  There Lester finds Angela.  Him comforting her over the fight she had with Jane almost leads to Angela having sex with Lester.  What stops this from happening is Angela admitting that she is a virgin, which runs contrary to the reputation she had made for herself.  Lester is overcome with shame, and takes her into the kitchen to make her some food and talk about Jane.  On the way back home, following being found a cheat by Lester, is Carolyn, who intends on having it out with her husband.  All this is cut off by a gunshot ringing out in the Burnham’s house, the result of Colonel Fitts murdering Lester.

Lester’s death is not the final moment in American Beauty.  Once the shot is fired, we see what everyone else is doing at that moment.  It comes just as Lester is looking at a picture of his family and realizing how beautiful is life.  The bits of the others you see come as he describes his feelings for them, relating to how your experiences supposedly “flash before your eyes” at the moment of death.  You also might be wondering what in this awfulness could ever make me cry?  It comes at the end when, after coming home and seeing Lester dead, Carolyn runs upstairs, sees her husband’s clothes hanging in the closet, and hugs them, sobbing.  Watching it this time around, being more sensitive to the kind of material you see in the movie, I found myself still struck by this moment.  Between the pedophilia, stalking, and teenage sex, there are a few lines that relate to God that are intriguing.  In his usual matter-of-fact, creepy way, Ricky openly discusses seeing a homeless woman freeze to death.  It is not the best of introductions to his main thesis, but he uses it to relate how there is “an entire life behind things.”  He goes on to say that he witnessed in her eyes at the point of death a “benevolent force” that let him know that there is no reason to be afraid.  While I would put it differently, this is nonetheless a testament to the existence of God, and more importantly, what He means for our lives.  To believe in God is not necessarily to say that you will never again experience fear.  On the contrary, He is somebody you can run to in those moments to know that, no matter how scary your circumstances may seem, everything will ultimately be okay.  He has won victory for us.  This also applies to Lester.  He spends the entire movie chasing after something he is afraid he lost, only to realize at the end that it was never gone.  He acknowledges that he should be mad that this came at the moment of his death, but having grasped it just once is enough.  This is because God is enough.

This is where American Beauty lands, though it never overtly talks about God.  This is why I write the things I write.  In the end, though, I cannot say I recommend it.  I realize life is not perfect, and that the movie is portraying American culture collectively through the Burnhams as having lost something.  I prefer my messages, though, in more idealistic packaging.