American Beauty (1999)

A middle aged executive (Kevin Spacey) has a midlife crisis. Stuck in an unhappy marriage to a real estate agent (Annette Bening), he hates his job. But when he meets the best friend (Mena Suvari) of his teenage daughter (Thora Birch), he becomes obsessed with the girl and attempts to redirect his energies to impress her. Directed by Sam Mendes (SKYFALL) in his feature film directorial debut. Critically acclaimed when released, it went on to win the Academy Award for best picture as well as best actor for Spacey and best director for Mendes. Alas, while it doesn't hold up well, it's still an impressive film. I understand that as a black comedy, its characters and their situations are exaggerated but all its characters are screwed up and unbalanced. Since the film's release, Spacey's predatory nature is well known so his pursuit of the underage high school girl has a layer of creepiness that wasn't there in 1999. The only character I had any empathy for was for Allison Janney's out of it wife and mother, slowly disappearing into herself. Her character is given short shrift and she doesn't have much to do but Janney lets you read the loneliness and pain in her face so you know what Hell this woman is living. In recent years, the movie's reputation has backslid significantly, justifiably I think. Much of it is obvious like the homophobic ex-Marine (Chris Cooper) who -surprise!- turns out to be a repressed homosexual. But there's still enough that's good that I can't write the film off. With Wes Bentley, Scott Bakula and Sam Robards.