American Beauty

American Beauty introduces us to the life of Lester Burnham, a middle class writer who lives with his career-obsessed wife and angry teenaged daughter. They live together in a stable, to all appearances normal, rut, where everything is preordained. The peace (and boredom) of this life is destroyed when Lester falls in love with his daughter's egocentric best friend. His lust, symbolised by red rose petals that keep appearing in his fantasies, destabilises the façade of his life and wakes him up to himself and what he has become. Lester (played wonderfully by Kevin Spacey) goes from being the sort of embarrassing Dad that almost everyone can relate to, to a man reinventing himself with surprising speed, whilst his wife (played by Annette Benning) drums her perfectly manicured fingers with consternation. Slowly the veneer of normality around the Burnham household is destroyed and along with it that of the house next door.

This film, much as I hate to say it, is every bit as good as the hype suggests. The camera work, the fantasy sequences, the music, the acting - everything is truly marvellous. It portrays the sometimes quite odd people in the film with touching honesty (for example, when asked why he wants to work out, Lester replies, quite simply, "I want to look good naked"). The characters, some normal (like Janie), others down-right weird (like Ricky, the boy next door who preserves his memories on videotape) are all masterfully portrayed. There are few Hollywood-style deep and meaningful moments, and these are handled in a less nauseating manner than normal. The end of the film (which was slightly depressing) left me with a head buzzing with thoughts that I couldn't find the words to express. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and judging by the thoughtful silence with which everyone filed out of the cinema, so did everyone else. If you see only one film this year, make it this one.

Jeevani Mantoba