INT. MORRISONS SUPERMARKET. EVENING

A shabby looking young man named MATT is pushing a trolley down the frozen food aisle of MORSSIONS SUPERMARKET with a lack of interest. His trolley is full of typical unhealthy food which is often associated to students - microwave meals and pot noodles.

As MATT comes out of the aisle, and tries desperately not to make eye contact or even acknowledge other BORED SHOPPERS, he notices the DVD BARGAIN BIN. The BARGAIN BIN is full of DANNY DYER films and generic rom-coms. MATT has a short shuffle through the DVDs, but after a few seconds he sighs and prepares to push his trolley down the crisps aisle.

But just before MATT begins to walk, a…

It begins with the voice over of a dead man. If you recall, Billy Wilder’s black comic masterpiece Sunset Blvd. also begins with narration courtesy of a corpse. Like William Holden and Gloria Swanson in American Beauty‘s cinematic ancestor, the film finds the flailing suburban bore Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) dangerously mismatched with the manic energy of his ambitious but quickly aging wife Carolyn (Annette Bening). As we’ve been told, their marriage will lead to murder, but we realize that the film’s outcome is less eventful than the events that transpire – a madcap mix of Altman-esque ensemble juggling, Hitchockian voyeurism, Howard Hawks-style screwball misunderstandings, and the seductive wiles of American beauty in all its pulp and profundity.

Lester and…

I find myself once again completely dumbfounded by the popularity of a movie, in this case the disappointing American Beauty, which I had actually been looking forward to for quite some time now. The worst and most annoying problem I have with it is the amount of talent that lies within the film that is constantly held back by the uninspired direction from Sam Mendes. The cast in particular features some very strong performances, especially from Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and above all Chris Cooper, who is to me the unsung hero of this collaboration. His turn as the outwardly strict, decisive and disciplined Colonel, only to reveal his severely broken insides is marvellous and made the ending more interesting…

"I feel like I've been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I'm just now waking up." - Lester Burnham

Watching American Beauty is like looking into a handful of American lives slowly plunging into moral and emotional devastation. Although these people are gaining a sincerely fulfilling happiness, they are also slowly losing their grip on human value and order.
This is not your average social commentary, it has something most satires lack; poignancy.

On one hand, this is a scathing examination of the facades and truths that surround a seemingly "perfect" suburban family, displaying what it would be like if everyone's true colours emerged, as they liberate themselves from the painful phoniness that society forces them to…

After the first 2 minutes alone, I was certain that it was going to be a good movie.

The story is being told in an ingenious and realistic way. That it stays within daily life realism makes this move very powerful. Overall, the concept of this movie was great and so were the dialogues; Just to mention how good they were, I knew beforehand that 'the girl' would be a virgin. The personalities that the characters had were very very realistic.

It turns me on whenever a movie gets to a point where everything seems to be connected, and this movie did rather good in doing so. Moreover, everything was predefined by one simple thing caused by the man who…

American Beauty is stylistically mesmerizing, it even makes a damn plastic bag in the wind seem deep and meaningful but under all that beauty is mess of a film.

The sub plot is a joke, worthless doesn't begin to describe it. The main plot is interesting but seem to crawl along desperate to wallow in its perceived brilliance.

The score really elevates this film and is responsible for the few moments that actually feel deep. For a film that is filled with flower imagery there is a distinct falseness to American Beauty perhaps this is a social commentary or maybe it's just bad screenwriting.

Kevin Spacey is simply excellent, his character is the most consistent which among a throng of…