American Beauty: My Amazon Review

Outstanding look at suburban existence,new millenium style. Benning is glorious as the Martha Stewart-like, neglectful working mother who is more concerned about her prize roses than her misfiring family life. Spacey exemplifies a belated return to youth, relishing even his boyhood burger stand job as a counter-balance to the baloney-filled, useless telemarketing position from which he bribed his way out. The kids find dashing rebuke for the alientation of parents and society in their dreams of boiking men, running away, and filming dead people. Stellar performance by all involved, but particularly Thora Birch as a wayward, misunderstood teen who eventually falls for the "geek boy" next door, the only miscreant that can understand her. Deducted: one star. Reason: Mendes screenplay, just a tad too far left of true suburban life; the charasters are flawed beyond reality, making not one of them the redeemed soul that would have sparked a sense of believability to the film. Four Stars