I rarely devote this space to anything but political matters but hereby make an exception for a movie review, of sorts.
American Beauty is classified as a comedy by Moviefone, which is ironically comedic in and of itself. Even describing it as a black comedy—a term which will definitely be declared non-PC and banned if Obama becomes our president—doesn’t satisfactorily describe this flick. Films such as Fight Club, Natural Born Killers, the Kill Bill series all plumb the depths of Hollywood’s collective and twisted violent psyche. American Beauty exposes the depths of Tinsel Town’s despair.
This now-8 year old film is truly an exceptional excursion into nihilism, even for Hollywood. It succeeds in portraying a middle class America that is so superficial and devoid of redeeming value that life itself is rendered meaningless. The protagonist is so riddled with angst that he makes angst seem like fun.
The Cast of Characters:
Lester—suicidal middle aged failure in a corrupt corporate world; fantasizes about pedophilia
Carolyn—his cold, distant wife who beds an associate to get ahead, becomes intrigued with pistols
Jane—their depressed, teen daughter who hates her parents and beds her teen neighbor
Ricky—the drug dealing, borderline-Columbine neighbor kid, who offers to kill Lester for Jane
Angela—Jane’s bff, pretty, shallow, promiscuous, airhead whose conceit betrays her self-doubt
Colonel Fitts—Ricky’s dad, brutal gun-loving Marine, latent homosexual
The plot is almost irrelevant and can easily be surmised from the cast of characters: Lester quits his meaningless job, gets another job slapping up burgers, discovers Carolyn’s affair, lusts after Angela, spares Angela from penetration when she says she’s a virgin, gets hit on by the colonel who initially suspected he was Ricky’s homosexual lover, has his brains blown out by said colonel, and dies with a contented smile on his face.
American Beauty manages to denigrate not only middle class America, but corporate life, America’s teens, and even the Marine Corps.
I can’t say American Beauty wasn’t a bad watch. Hey, even my wife called it “good” and it garnered a slew of Academy Awards and Oscars can’t be wrong, right? What always strikes me, though, is the Hollywood penchant for depicting others as dysfunctional when there are more dysfunctional people per square mile in Hollywood than anywhere else on the planet!
When can we expect to see Hollywood Beauty? Much of it could be shot in rehab facilities.