Lester Burnham is a typically disillusioned suburbanite. His wife and daughter barely notice his existence, his job satisfaction is zero and his life has been reduced to an accumulation of material possessions: "I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn't always feel this ... sedated." Cue a mid-life crisis, with Lester fantasising about one of his daughter's high-school friends and smoking dope with the local drug dealer. Meanwhile, his daughter Jane is receiving unusual romantic attention and his wife Carolyn is so good at living a lie that she has convinced even herself. But to boil Alan Ball's brilliant script down to these bare essentials is to do it a disservice; amongst other things, American Beauty is a love story, a bitterly black comedy, a satire of middle-class American values and a celebration of the beauty of everyday things.Under the direction of Sam Mendes, American Beauty has become one of the most critically acclaimed films to come out of the US in recent years and is an astonishingly assured film debut by the British theatre director. Mendes's film is blessed with some fantastic performances but reading the screenplay proves that the actors were given first-rate material with which to work. The script is often hilarious, at other times poignant and always sharp in its observations. The version presented here is that of the completed film and whilst it would have been interesting to read the original script which so impressed Mendes, the finished article is so well-written that any complaint seems ungracious. --John Oates
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