Good Morning, My Brothers and Sisters of Rock!

So I watched AMERICAN BEAUTY... again... this weekend. I've seen it about a handful of times, and yet (much to my dismay) I still kinda like it, despite being resistant to how geeked out people get about it. Anyways, I DO however think it has two major flaws in it, and I'd like to share 'em with you today and ruin your perception of the movie as a perfect gem.

BEWARE OF SPOILERS. If you have not seen this movie yet, you will probably not want to read this.



First off, let me start with what I like about the movie. One of my favorite aspects of it, and weirdly enough I only noticed it this time through, is the comedic timing of some of the scenes. Strangely, the timing often makes it feel like dialogue from an old Abbott and Costello episode or something. Not the CONTENT of the dialogue, of course. But the timing. This is particularly noticeable in the bedroom scene where Lester is caught masturbating by his wife. Their exchange RINGS with the timing of some old-fashioned comedy. And this is particularly interesting to me because old comedies such as Abbott and Costello or the Three Stooges completely drip in stereotypes. The characters aren't developed at all, they're just stagings for the next joke or pratfall.

Which fits in perfectly with what I really like about the movie: each of these characters starts out as a sort of stereotype, a mask or facade. You have the blond slut of a cheerleader, the father going through a mid-life crisis. But the unhappiness of each of these individuals unravels them as complicated individuals and removes their masks in the end, revealing that they are much more than the sum of these stereotypes.

This is good.

HOWEVER, this leads into one of my big pet peeves about the movie: Chris Cooper's character, Col. Frank Fitts. I really really like Chris Cooper as an actor, and despite being peeved by his character, I think he does a good job acting as usual. But what bothers me about his character is this: the unraveling of his facade/stereotype only leads into ANOTHER stereotype. We find out that he is a Colonel, a military-man, and a rigid and abusive man as well. This stereotype unravels itself to reveal the root of his unhappiness to be... the fact that he secretly has homosexual urges that he is disgusted with and doesn't know how to deal with. His mask is removed to reveal an EVEN BIGGER STEREOTYPE which is inconsistent with the revelatory nature of all the other characters. This does not COMPLICATE his character. It just makes it even more flat and silly. Perhaps if he were fighting with these urges but NOT a military-man, I might be able to swallow this. Or perhaps if he were a military-man dealing with his own abusiveness WITHOUT the extra ingredient of his latent homosexuality, I might be able to swallow it as well. But the combination of BOTH these characteristics is so goddamned silly to me. And inconsistent within the movie as well.

My OTHER major pet peeve with the movie is that it is set up as a sort of mystery. The first scene of the movie consists of Janie (Lester's daughter) discussing with her boyfriend how they should kill her father. DUN DUN DUNNNNN. Immediately after, Lester reveals in a voice-over that he will die within the next week. Writer Alan Ball sets this up so that we are left wondering how he will die and whether it will be his daughter who kills him. But then this mystery is tossed to the wayside for nearly ALL of the movie until it is brought up again near the end. We are given a variety of possibilities as to who might be his killer: the enraged wife taking shooting practice who has the gun sitting next to her on her carseat? The disgusted daughter who earlier contemplates her father's death? The boyfriend of said girl who agrees (jokingly) to murder him for her? None of the above! It ends up being Fitts, the next-door neighbor with the newly-discovered penchant for penis.

I don't even really object to the fact that it ends up being Fitts. It's a little bit silly given his character and given that his homosexuality leads to him killing someone... But fine. I can deal with that.

What bugs me is that the movie is framed within some sort of mystery. A whodunit kinda deal. And this really doesn't seem to fit or enhance what the movie is all about... It does not develop any important themes nor does it enlighten us at all in any sort of way.

It just seems to be a cheap means of moving the plot along: "If we set up the movie as a mystery at the beginning, the audience will be left wondering who the killer is. And then we can turn the movie into what it REALLY is--a commentary on people and unhappiness and, in turn, happiness--while still keeping the attention of those who could care less about "touching" movies with "themes" and "commentaries" about the sad state of modern man. We can give them the illusion that they're watching a mystery at least."

And there you have it. My two big pet peeves with the movie, two pet peeves that could easily be changed without losing ANY impact of the stories or characters in the movie...

Alan Ball, I think it's time for a rewrite.

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