American Beauty - Sam Mendes (1999)

Sam Mendes is widely known for only three productions: Road to Perdition (2002), American Beauty (1999), and James Bond - Skyfall (2012). He is a born talent, able to carry in his back everything authentic in the re-dramatization of musicals such as Cabaret (1994), and Oliver! (1994), Company (1996), Gypsy (2003), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013), and the famous Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden - West End - London owe much of its worldwide glory to him.

Despite keeping a profile of discreet decency, Sam Mendes is also one of the most renowned English directors, with an impressive portfolio of stage productions, including collaborations with almost every major theater company worldwide. So when his debut film instantly received 5 Oscars, 6 BAFTA awards, and 3 Golden Globes, it shouldn't have surprised anyone.

Because American Beauty represents a project conceived seven years earlier and worked on decisively until the last seconds of editing, where entire parts of the script were reevaluated and reassembled into the narrative with radically opposite meanings most of the time.

Initially, American Beauty was supposed to be a play, but it was twisted into a soap opera, and at the end (when DreamWorks bought the material), it became a film screenplay. Again, in the first phase we were dealing with a satire of the Amy Elizabeth Fisher case, which then held the front pages of tabloids (a 17-year-old girl who shot her lover's wife and who would later become one of the most important porn stars of the time), in the last stage, the story becomes a tragicomedy that incriminates the defining traits of American middle-class society.

Actually, it's about the revolt of a man whom everyone else has decided to ignore. Perhaps as a result of alienation, perhaps as a victim of the system, or perhaps as a consequence of a passive life, Lester Burnham becomes invisible to his wife, just an accessory to his daughter, and useless at work. We begin by noting how most of the conditions that contributed to Lester's decline are his own fault, and we almost sympathize with the character's unjustified drama. But once we enter his reality, perspectives begin to blur, and his guilt dissolves. The problems are existential, profound, and essential, and the way in which the transition from individual crisis to complicated social roots of coexistence, compromise, and consensus is achieved means the great triumph of this film.

The choice of Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening is an inspiring and saving one, both managing to isolate expressive characters from ridiculous scores. The reconciliation, peace, and quiet of Lester, opposed to the expansiveness of Carolyn, a real estate agent who cannot distinguish between success and happiness (losing both equally), together form a solid foundation on which anything can be built, including a production that unfolds in layers, with many characters laden with doubts, hesitations, and confusions, in which no one is truly evil, but on the other hand, no one manages to be as they would like to be.

Excellent cinematography with impeccable images. The wide-screen scenes, in which the composition of the frame is treated with maximum attention and artistic sense, are shot in three different ways: one static (formal and distant) for the body of the film, another graceful and romantic - for fantasy scenes, and a third dynamic and succinct (with handheld camera) for the parts that introduce elements of tension and "in-film" shots. The methods are used alternately, but also gradually, with a progressively accelerated dosage towards the end of the film. It's a similar process that Sam Mendes uses to portray the two main characters, Jane and Angela, in which makeup becomes increasingly discreet for the former and more excessive for the latter as the plot advances. This suggests the difference in the attitude of the characters and their evolution in relation to themselves, as Angela's experiences require her to mature immediately, while Jane's drift forces her to maintain neutrality.

Yes, that's correct! The production is so focused on its characters, particularly Lester, that all other contributions become uninteresting, and the effort materializes in success: he is ultimately a winner, justifying the entire endeavor... because even if Lester Burnham loses everything by the end of the film (including his life), from that exact same point he ceases to be a loser. He is a winner.