By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Sam Mendes’ once adored but now ignored 1999 satire American Beauty, starring (sssssh) Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari and Thora Birch.
Yeah, yeah, we know, we know…Kevin Spacey has been cancelled for being a sexual predator or a cannibal or something (oh, no, wait, that was the Armie Hammer bloke), so now we have to make out like none of his films ever existed.
But suck it up, people, you once carried on like pork chops over this ham-bone, singing his praises in over-hyped shit like Se7en, The Usual Suspects and that crap TV series House Of Cards. But the flick that everybody really collectively lost their shit for was 1999’s American Beauty. Kev cancellation aside, however, this movie just sucks…and it always did.
Look, there goes a plastic bag, blowing in the breeze. Isn’t it beautiful? No. No, it’s not. It’s just litter.
American Beauty is one of those films that, at first, appears meaningful and, well, beautiful but which are in fact pretentious, shallow and pointless. As a commentary on the breakdown of the ever-elusive American Dream, it fails to add anything new. Worse still, it never allows us to figure out its themes for ourselves. The filmmakers even felt the need to put the word “American” in the title. Yes, it’s all a sham – we get it already.
American Beauty, the critics say, contains several knockout performances. If by knockout, the critics mean shockingly overrated, then I wholeheartedly agree. Kevin Spacey, playing hopeless suburban salary-man Lester Burnham, does what he does every time that he steps in front of the camera. He plays Kevin Spacey. Pre-cancellation, people mistook it as understated and clever, but it’s just the same Spacey deadpan delivery from every previous film that he’s done. And he actually won an Oscar? Oh, whatever…they practically give those suckers away…even Sandra Bullock has one.
Opposite Spacey is Annette Bening, who drastically overplays her role. The Academy wisely decided not to give her the nod on the night, though the fact that she was even invited is surely an oversight on the part of some poorly paid administrator.
It’s the film’s ending, however, that annoys The Butcher the most. It’s actually more the beginning than the end, but allow me to explain. In the opening minutes, we are treated to the most stupid piece of narration ever. “I am 42-years-old; in less than a year, I will be dead.” Oh, spoil the ending, why don’t you? Thanks for that. I’m surprised he didn’t follow it with, “Pitt and Norton are the same person and Bruce Willis is a ghost!”
With five Oscars and countless more awards, people might say that I’m being a tad harsh on American Beauty, but then these are probably the same people who think that a Woolworths plastic bag is a thing of beauty. Cretins…
