American Beauty

When I called this a classic, snorts of derision filled the room. "I've always thought it was boring", said one colleague. "That movie is so overrated," a budding documentary filmmaker announced with cool disdain. "It's basically about this old man who's perving this young girl."

Perhaps American Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because I've watched it four times without ever finding it boring, or thinking it sympathetic to paedophilia or abuse of sexual power. But it does have a very complex moral gradient, and it is disturbing.

Screenwriter Allen Ball originally wrote the film as a stage play, inspired by an image that became central to the film – a plastic bag dancing in the wind through an idealised American landscape; an exquisite piece of garbage juxtaposed with the sterile beauty of the suburban ideals middle Americans are told to strive for.

From the beginning, different characters' perspectives are juxtaposed and we first meet the central character Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) through his 16-year-old daughter Anna's (Thora Birch) angry eyes. (She claims she wants her father killed.) In the second scene, we meet Lester, and he tells us:

"My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood. This is my street. This... is my life. I'm 42-years-old. In less than a year, I'll be dead."

We meet Lester's ambitious estate agent wife (Annette Bening) who prunes her roses, and the kid next door (Ricky Fitts, played by Wes Bentley) who deals dope and films Anna through the window. We meet Ricky's Nazi-obsessed, closeted and abusive father. And the games begin.

Lester is bitterly perceptive, comically loveable and fairly repulsive at first. The high point of Lester's day is whacking off in the shower. He's the laughing stock of his family. His wife has become his mother and is straying in search of a hero. He hates his job and is about to lose it – and soon does.

So, left with nothing to prove, Lester does what he thinks will make him happy instead of what he thinks he should do. The consequences will make you laugh, cringe and perhaps cry.

Yes, he does lust after the attentions of his daughter's cheerleader friend, the beautiful, insecure Angela (Mena Suvari) whose self-worth has become about the sexual prowess she lies about. And Lester's lust is excruciating for many viewers.

What's interesting is the immediacy of the viewers' embarrassment. Watching Lester, you feel his daughter's pain. You want to scream at him, "Stop it, stop it! You idiot!" Why? Because you've been there, watching some older guy speaking to a woman your age in a way that frightened them, or embarrassed you. Lester is probably like someone you know and love. In the words of a good friend, "Any older man who says he's not attracted to young girls is lying." In the words of the same friend, "Anyone who actually does anything about it is stupid."

So you can't wait to find out what Lester will do if he gets the chance to fulfill his juvenile sexual fantasies. The movie leads you to expect the worst, and from a woman's perspective, Lester's very hard to like.

Which is exactly what makes this movie so special. As in life, there are no heroes. We aren't led to wholly like Lester – or any other character. Like real people, every character is so wrapped up in their own issues and so in their own interpretations of their lives and others' lives that they fail to see what's really going on, and fail to enjoy what is good in their lives. Blinkered, they keep missing the point.

Why? Because this is not a morality tale intended to convey a general truth about the world. It is made up of many interlinked narratives of real people who have hidden motivations and problems we fail to understand. It also demonstrates how making assumptions and being unable to face our own faults can have tragic consequences. Ball, the actors, and director Sam Mendes tell this story without losing the plot.

The movie was originally a lot more judgmental rather than exploratory, and much more plot driven. It was originally top and tailed by courtroom drama and jail scenes, with the main story as a flashback. (read the original script here). By freeing the story from the scaffolding of the court case format, American Beauty became far more open to interpretation. Read the final script here.

So the viewer has as many options when interpreting the film. I thought, "NOW I see why people have a midlife crisis. And it's not crazy. Who wouldn't have one?" Someone else thought, "This old guy trying to impress this young girl so she'll sleep with him is just pathetic." And any reaction is probably both valid and only partly fair.

For me, this film is not about how Lester dies, although he does. It's not about men lusting after younger women. It's about how we all must learn to really live, and to accept life's complexity. What did you see in it?

- Jean Barker

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