Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2166 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-11-27
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Dutch
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 117 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
From its first gliding aerial shot of a generic suburban street, American Beauty moves with a mesmerising confidence and acuity epitomised by Kevin Spacey's calm narration. Spacey is Lester Burnham, a harried Everyman whose midlife awakening is the spine of the story, and his very first lines hook us with their teasing fatalism--like Sunset Boulevard's Joe Gillis, Burnham tells us his story from beyond the grave. It's an audacious start for a film that justifies that audacity. Weaving social satire, domestic tragedy and whodunit into a single package, Alan Ball's first theatrical script dares to blur generic lines and keep us off balance, winking seamlessly from dark, scabrous comedy to deeply moving drama. The Burnham family joins the cinematic short-list of great dysfunctional American families, as Lester is pitted against his manic, materialistic realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, making the most of a mostly unsympathetic role) and his sullen, contemptuous teenaged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch, utterly convincing in her edgy balance of self-absorption and wistful longing). Into their lives come two catalytic outsiders. A young cheerleader (Mena Suvari) jolts Lester into a sexual epiphany that blooms into a second adolescence. And an eerily calm young neighbour (Wes Bentley) transforms both Lester and Jane with his canny influence. Credit another big-screen newcomer, English theatrical director Sam Mendes, with expertly juggling these potentially disjunctive elements into a superb ensemble piece that achieves a stylised pace without lapsing into transparent self-indulgence. Mendes has shrewdly insured his success with a solid crew of stage veterans, yet he has also made an inspired discovery in Bentley, whose Ricky Fitts becomes a fulcrum for both plot and theme. Cinematographer Conrad Hall's sumptuous visual design further elevates the film, infusing the beige interiors of the Burnhams' lives with vivid bursts of deep crimson, the colour of roses--and of blood. --Sam Sutherland

Video Description
DVD Special Features

Subtitles: English (HOH), Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish.

Synopsis
AMERICAN BEAUTY tells the story of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a suburban father who snaps when he becomes disgusted with his stale, repetitive existence. Burnham lets us know in voice-over from the film's opening that this is the day he dies (using the SUNSET BOULEVARD flashback approach), a technique that adds an inevitable tension to the proceedings and keeps the story moving forward at all times. On a whim, Lester quits his job and begins a regression into young adulthood, lifting weights, smoking pot, doing nothing, and discovering the overflowing sexuality of his 16-year-old daughter's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). His wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), has her own midlife crisis of sorts. A real estate agent, she experiences a youthful awakening when super-agent Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher) seduces her repeatedly. Meanwhile, Jane (Thora Birch), the Burnhams' daughter, is pursued by Ricky (Wes Bentley), the mysterious boy next door who carries a video camera around with him at all times. When Ricky's militaristic father, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper), discovers something potentially horrifying on one of his tapes, and when Carolyn's rage for Lester's actions boils over, the time bomb finally explodes.

Customer Reviews

shocking and different approach to drama
Lester Burnham's (Spacey) life is reawaken when he meets Angela Hayes (Suvari).

This 1999 Oscar winning picture is regarded as Mendes' finest and with a fine realistic styled direction it is easy to see why.

Dramas can often be ruined when a can of clichés is opened but Mendes keeps a grounded direction all the way through and uses a variety of techniques to achieve the ultimate shocking effect. From a simple but effective sweeping shot of the suburban residency to the artistic and now infamous fantasy sequences, Mendes maintains the realism in the film's context.

Alan Ball's Oscar winning script is superb. The conciseness of the character's lives is easy and relaxing to watch which, given the complexity of the situations, is genius. His grounded characters are well placed into a plot about such strong issues such as family, job, sexual orientation, love, lust and drugs. So where as many dramas tell a story they have no sub-story, but Ball's script has everything. Twists and turns, comedy, drama, not to mention an array of fascinating individual characters.

Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects) gives an Oscar winning performance as Lester, a man with nothing, who wants everything. Far from your typical mid life sufferer, Lester is a complex soul with his head on his shoulders. Lester is a man who anyone of any age can relate to. He is an outcast in his family, he is alone, he hates his job and he fantasises about his crush. These basic human emotions and impulses help viewers relate to the film and create a welcoming and comforting presence. He is also very funny to watch.

Annette Bening (The Grifters) is only second to Spacey in this Oscar nominated role as Lester's husband Carolyn. Her quirky and false character is interesting to watch, particularly when in scenes with her husband. These are some fine comedy and dramatic moments; watch out for the couch reference. The pair has created a very memorable marriage and one of the most intriguing in drama film history.

The young supporting cast of Birch, Bentley and Suvari is typical of teenage life and used to stunning effect. Ball puts a marvellous spin on the stereotypical `ugly' girl and the `popular' one too, and by not following conventional characters, American beauty is different and brilliant in its own unique way.

With its stunning direction, writing and characters, American Beauty has proved to be a timeless classic that not only entertains, but shocks and surprises.

9.5/10

A Seriously Messed Up View On Life...
...But worryingly accurate at the same time. American Beauty is about Lester Burnham, a middle-ages man stuck in a marriage with a wife who he hates and a daughter who hates him. He feels ignored, under-appreciated,as if he is simply walking through life playing out the part, no emotions involved, never feeling anything. Then he meets his daughter's best friend, Angela Hayes, and the new kid next door, Ricky Fitts, and inspired by both decides to start living again. Within a month he winds up dead.

What is so haunting about this film is that it is real - the characters, the emotions, the love and hatred - it's all taken from real life, everyone's experienced these things before, everyone knows someone who behaves like Carolyn, or Jane, or Frank etc. It is so bizarre to see this portrayed on film, blatant for all to see, when usually people try to hide the darker side of real life, either making cushy love stories, films about gangs and crim, or un-realistic horror films to scare people instead. The thing is, real life is so much darker.

The acting from all concerned is faultless. Kevin Spacey plays Lester to perfection - the viewer understands exactly what Lester is going through, you are on his side even if his actions are not what you would find morally correct. Annette Bening is incredible as Carolyn - you truly believe she is this insane, power-hungry perfectionist, and most importantly, at the end, you also truly believe that she did love her husband, despite everything. Wes Bentley played Ricky to the right level of creepy, still allowing the audience to connect with him, and Thora Birch and Mena Suvari play the two girls to perfection - unlike certain films that portray teenagers in a completely unrealistic way you could actually believe these girls were attending high school, their behaviour and speech was spot on.

This film is dark, sick, twisted, yet the ending is hopeful too (you'll know what I mean if you watch it). One of the greatest films of our time - a film to inspire you, as well as make you sit back and think, what kind of life are we living here. A must see!

An outstanding accomplishment
Drama in which a middle-class suburban family begins to fall apart when husband and father Kevin Spacey starts going through a mid-life crisis, quitting his job as a magazine writer, befriending his teenage daughter Thora Birch's boyfriend Wes Bentley, starting to smoke marijuana and beginning an obsession with his daughter's best friend Mena Suvari, all in an attempt to dispel the deadness that he feels inside and regain the happiness that he feels that he has not had since he was a young man. Spacey's behaviour serves to further destabilise his already dysfunctional family in which his daughter despises him and his wife Annette Bening and him never have sex: now his wife runs into the arms of another man and his daughter progresses from despising him to being outright sickened by him because of his obvious sexual interest in her best friend. But Spacey doesn't care because he feels that his life was a sham anyway and the only way he can regain what he has lost is by letting go of all the lies and pretences and doing whatever will make him and him alone happy. This film is populated by largely tragic characters, all struggling to make sense of life and escape the despair and bleakness that seems to them to be all that there is. Spacey is reliable as the voice of the movie and the main protagonist going through the mid-life crisis who moves from sympathetic to unsympathetic to sympathetic through the course of the movie. Thora Birch is excellent as Spacey's teenage daughter who feels that she is a misfit and forms a relationship with troubled boy next door and drug dealer Wes Bentley, who has been inside a mental institution and has an unsettling habit of filming people on his camcorder when they don't know he is watching. Annette Bening is on form as Spacey's desperately unhappy estate agent wife whose primary concern is putting on a façade of marital and domestic bliss for the world to see to hide the fact that her family and marriage are falling apart. Mena Suvari puts in a favourable performance as Birch's insecure best friend who derives her self-esteem from the fact that men find her sexually attractive but is secretly afraid that she is nothing special and hence will never gain the adulation that she craves. Finally Chris Cooper is good in a supporting role as Birch's boyfriend Bentley's violent and homophobic father. This film, although largely bleak in tone and quite disturbing at times, is poignant and has a profound message about the importance of seeing beauty in life, which director Sam Mendes symbolises throughout the film with red petals from the American Beauty rose (from which the film takes its name). With a number of revelations and a shocking final twist, this is one of the best films I have ever seen, and easily deserves the Oscars that it won. An outstanding accomplishment