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When people ask you what your favorite film is or what you think is the best or greatest film you have ever seen, you can give all sorts of reasons such as every time you see the specific film. I choose American Beauty as what I believe to be the greatest film ever made because I have seen a vast number of films and it's unlike any other film I have ever seen so far. To put it shortly, it's certainly the most original film I have ever seen.
It tells the story of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a middle aged magazine executive who decides to change his life by ignoring his overachieving domineering wife Carolyn (Annette Bening), smoking pot, quitting the job he hates and also developing a sexual attraction for his daughter's friend (Mena Suvari). The acting is completely flawless. I have never seen acting in a film where both the supporting cast and the lead cast are all brilliant. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are a powerful team and together they create two of the best performances in the history of cinema. The supporting cast consisting of Wes Bentley, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper, Peter Gallagher and Allison Janney, are both well cast and well immersed into their characters to the point where you believe they might as well be playing themselves. The characters in this film are just flawless. Lester played by Spacey is a really great character; a man who knows he should be set free and be rid of his domineering wife Carolyn played by Bening. If there was one character that I would describe as my favorite, then I think I'd go with Angela played by Mena Suvari. She is so nasty, so overconfident and so repugnant yet strangely that's what makes her more interesting and it makes you want to know so much more about her and her past. I also think Mena Suvari was Oscar worthy but then again, you can't have everything. Originally American Beauty was written by Alan Ball as a play and in the film, there are traits of play like material. But I personally think it's better off as just a film on it's own. The wordplay is brilliant, the story is very well constructed and the satire that Ball creates on 1990's suburbia is very well executed.
From a technical point of view, American Beauty is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. The sound design and the editing is great, the visuals are neat, the music score by Thomas Newman breathes new depths into modern film score, but above all the cinematography by Conrad L. Hall is the best technical part of the film. It's not only the shots and movements of the camera that are great but there is certain magnificence to the colour that Hall uses on the houses and on the outside shots. If there is one thing I admire above all both technically and non-technically then it would be the direction by Sam Mendes. Originally a West End Theatre Director, Mendes was hired to do American Beauty after the Steven Spielberg saw his Broadway version of Cabaret. I can only imagine that going from being a theatre director to helming a film awards contender, must have been one of the most daunting experiences of anyone's life but Mendes did brilliantly. You can tell a well directed film when you see actors in complete control and when every shot and every scene looks exactly how it should in order to create a straightforward narrative/plot. For a debut, it is just incredible to see Mendes at work and he proves himself to be quite the chameleon allowing himself to brilliantly direct Theatre and Film. American Beauty is a brilliant, bold, magnificent take on life in the 1990's. It is compelling, darkly funny and the greatest film of all time.
10/10
