Review of American Beauty

Introduction

When a film arrives on DVD having received as much critical acclaim as American Beauty, it has a great deal to live up to. Sam Mendes` debut film received 8 Oscar nominations, winning 5 including the big three of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. A huge amount of nominations and awards around the world helped to make American Beauty one of the most praised films of all time. Steven Spielberg describes it as a classic - he`s not wrong.

American Beauty is very difficult to categorise - it`s a comedy in places but a drama or romance in others.

Kevin Spacey features in an Oscar winning portrayal of Lester Burnham, a middle aged loser, in an unhappy marriage with a daughter who hates him. When his daughter brings home a beautiful and confident friend, Lester becomes obsessed and his life begins to spiral out of control. Meanwhile, his employers have asked their staff to write descriptions of their jobs to assess if they are expendable. Lester`s short and sharp response, "My job requires mostly masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and, at least once a day, retiring to the men`s room so I can jerk off while I fantasize about a life that less closely resembles Hell" earns him a payoff and he decides to do what he wants for a change. Whilst Lester buys a new car, smokes pot and works out to attract his daughter`s friend, his wife, played superbly by Annette Benning, starts an affair with a business rival and his daughter starts dating the boy next door who is a drug dealer and the son of a very strict ex-military officer. Mendes then treats us to an in depth look at each of the characters.

Video

Conrad L. Hall`s Oscar winning cinematography is beautifully presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. The picture is colourful and crisp throughout and displays no compression problems.

The film is mainly shot in around the homes of the Burnhams and their next door neighbours and there is little in the way of special effects.

Audio

Audio comes in a choice of either Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1. As my system is DTS compliant, I chose the DTS soundtrack, but to be honest, American Beauty is not a film about sound so there is probably little difference in between the two, or even Pro-Logic for that matter.

Thomas Newman`s contemporary score was nominated for an Oscar and is entirely appropriate for the movie, the tempo mimicking the humour or drama on screen as required.

The dialog is clear and understandable throughout the movie.

Features

There are two trailers, production notes, cast/crew bios, DVD-ROM screenplay, storyboards and a "American Beauty: Look Closer" featurette.

Whilst interesting enough, the featurette doesn`t go into a great deal of detail and contains a quite a lot of the "Kevin Spacey was the first choice" and "Mendes is such a good Director" backslapping that is commonplace in making-of featurettes.

Conclusion

American Beauty is the masterpiece that the hype would have you believe and it thoroughly deserved its Oscars.

The quality is achieved through a combination of the directing, filming, superb performances from everybody involved and a great script.

If, like me you were unsure if you would enjoy this movie, I urge you to watch it - you will not be disappointed. Anyone who saw it at the cinema will already know just how good the film is, and they will be more interested in the quality of the DVD - picture and sound are good and there`s an above average set of features.

Recommended.