American Beauty Review

Interest: 8/10

Acting: 8/10

Storyline: 8/10

Music: 8.5/10

Fights Guns or otherwise: 8.5/10

Excitement: 7/10

Drama: 8/10

Nudity: 7/10

Unintentional (Or intentional) Humor: 8/10

Logic: 8/10

American Beauty is a 1999 Drama starring Kevin Spacey (I’m sure the rest of these people are famous in their own right, but I don’t recognize any of them personally.) the run time is two hours and one minute. I’m typically not a fan of just straight dramas, but as requested by Grant Thomas, I said I would. So let’s get into it shall we?

Interest: So this movie can hold an interest. On the surface at first it becomes a film about typical American life, which while they don’t make it seem brutal, you have to worry about losing your job, or even getting paid at all because you get paid on commission, and it takes a toll on you if you don’t do well, then it becomes a movie that is about falling in love/lust with you teenage daughters friend. it’s an interesting concept that porn has definitely done over and over again (With of age participants) but as an actual concept, is truly gross. But other things happen to make this a little more palatable and well, you’d have to watch to the end to see for yourself, but it does keep your interest well.

Acting: The acting in this movie is pretty good. I never think an actor is just being themselves I don’t think. They act very well being the “average” American family, Both parents working, struggling to make ends meet, a disgruntled teenage kid being edgy, and when there’s a work function, the inevitable talking before you walk in to be happy and friendly, then being overly friendly and being weird, not on purpose of course. It shows the American life of honestly more of our parents perhaps, then our generation (I’m 27 of this writing, so maybe even our grandparents or two generations ago) but either way they do what I think most people must of done back in the day (although back then, they were doing much better in a financial perspective then we are)But it to me at least, portrays the American life well and the actors and actresses do incredibly well to show how life really is.

Storyline: The storyline in the film makes sense and there are no blaring plot holes or anything that seems wrong or out of place upon first look (I didn’t watch it twice) but it’s more or less a melt down from the top to the bottom of a few families, their relationships, and even habits. It is a beautifully constructed disaster that just keeps happening.

Music: The music is mostly from some source of music in the scene that is showing at the time. This being said, the music that plays is nice and fits the mood and scene it is in, which makes it a very nice change of pace to most of my movies (Generally no music) and while the idea of the music just coming from somewhere within the scene isn’t anything new, it I think may be the first film I’ve reviewed that does that, which is nice.

Fights, Guns or otherwise: American Beauty has very little violence physically, most of it is verbal jabs and mental anguish. A scene does show a fist fight, but otherwise it’s interpersonal turmoil that causes the “fights” that happen. And a gun is fired, but also not a big turning point. Also there is the ending, but I won’t spoil that for you.

Excitement: the film has a moderate amount of excitement, nothing to crazy, but enough to keep you interested in the movie and keep you from really doing anything else. I don’t know what time frame the movie takes place (If it was supposed to be 1999 or earlier, or even later) but it does have some nice moments of parents trying to be straight lace diving back into old habits, seeing denial from a parents perspective as they know there kid parties, but somehow keeps passing drug tests, or a wife trying to pull the “I’m divorcing you” card while the man actually wins that fight with her while they discuss it in their own bedroom. It’s a nice look at culture and what may or may not be happening, but personally I feel as though as it is, you may see this movie as a complete utter parody of our culture and life. Laughing at everything that I think may be serious, and looking at me crazily as I laugh at what you think is a serious movie.

Drama: So not being a huge strict drama movie fan I had to honestly go look up “What is a drama movie?” and I got the answer “Drama Films are serious presentations or stories with settings or life situations that portray realistic characters in conflict with either themselves, others, or forces of nature. A dramatic film shows us human beings at their best, their worst, and everything in-between.” That quote came from Filmsite.org (I’ll post the full link at the bottom) so with all of that mentioned there is near non stop drama from scene to scene, and while that seems like a lot, its very subtle changes of things, from a bridge between lovers, to being in nearly different galaxies apart in love and differences. From refraining from drugs and sex, to just being a glutton for those things. This movie totally is a drama and it does it exceedingly well. It has many different types of struggle in it and changes in characters, but the base of them stay the same.

Nudity: There isn’t much in the way of nudity, a set of breasts are seen here and there, but does it hurt it or help it? I’m honestly not sure. It would of perhaps made the movie more “real” in a way to see more, but that’s what the sex scenes are for I believe, while on the other hand, the lack of nudity, gives the movie to use metaphors to explain things without being so upfront to people.

Unintentional (Or intentional) Humor: So if this movie is trying to be a incredibly serious film, it either over did it’s job to the point of satire, or more parts of this are funny to me that it should be. Some of my laughter comes from uncomfortableness and things just being awkward, some of it comes from the movie actually being funny, and some parts are from being shocking. And then some of the humor is genuinely funny. I’m personally rating it high because I did laugh quite a bit and it was a fun albeit, a real life look at things.

Logic: The logic in this movie is sound. While most people would go “Well why didn’t he kiss his bosses ass to keep his job?” it’s because sometimes people become so burdened with life and that they feel trapped and completely hopeless and helpless, that if something doesn’t change, that well they’ll be on the six o’clock news for all the wrong reasons, so instead that person really, just quit giving a shit, and this film honestly is how probably most of us feel. That we aren’t happy with our jobs, our situations in life, and just want to have fulfillment. Most of us don’t work jobs that is something that is super interesting to us, or maybe even something we like, we do it for money, but when most of this stuff doesn’t pay well without just burying yourself in debt, why bother? But besides any of those logical things some of you may not see, To anyone that may think (or honestly just watch the movie) should get what this movie is getting at from a large perspective as well as the finer details.

So do I recommend this movie? Yes, Yes I do. The movie while not for some, is a great and wonderful showing of our lives, and how people really live. Typically it isn’t to that degree of crazy, but the idea of a massive struggle happening in your life because of work, a relationship, a kid, or really any reason, is a normal thing, and happens to all of us. I feel bad for Keven Spacey’s character and it shouldn’t of ended that way, but so do so many people’s lives in today’s society. We keep doing more with less, until it’s at a breaking point, and this movie kinda shows what happens in a worst case scenario. This movie scores a 79/100. Honestly one of the better movies I’ve watched that I’ve reviewed, and really glad about it. Thanks Grant for recommending this movie.

Website link: https://www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html