*This review was originally published on September 28, 1999.

“Look closer.”

I’d be hard-pressed to recall a marketing campaign that has hewn so closely to the object of its affection, the film it is selling, than that represented by those pushing American Beauty.  While on the surface, Beauty takes sharp aim at the wholly American concept of suburbia and its descendant sub-cultures, revealing the heart of darkness that beats steadily below the glossy surface of a society built upon good looks and stagnant superficiality, the film also uncovers enough evidence on its own to justify the its title subject; beauty.

First time feature director Sam Mendes invites the viewer to “look closer.” To peel back the layers. To question the truths we ought to find self-evident. To ultimately cherish the ordinary for its inherent beauty it self-consciously hides. He gives voice to this message through a myriad of fractured characters, ultimately electing Ricky (Wes Bently) as his most audible spokesperson.

Ricky enters the picture as a newcomer to this familiar slice of Americana, a quaint neighborhood utopia of perfect little homes surrounding by perfect white picket fences and inhabited by perfectly shiny, happy people. Ricky takes one look around, and immediately sees the damage wrought below the surface. He’s a studied observer, and his reflections pave the way for the viewer’s journey.

Ricky has a curious hobby. Unbeknownst to his neighbors, Ricky secretly videotapes everything he encounters, on a quest to document the beauty he finds in the ordinary events that are building blocks to our perceived average lives. Each random event and object that life hurls his way, earns his undivided and due attention. From a lone plastic bag caught dancing on air, spun in the electrical charge of a crisp winter’s day, mere moments before a wondrous snowfall, to a late night sneak peak at his desperate neighbor’s attempts to wake up and undo twenty years of bodily neglect through crash course exercise regimens in the buff, these moments entrance their concealed voyeur. Depicted early on as a troubled introvert, another riff on the general malaise that has become Generation Y’s calling card, Ricky eventually emerges as the film’s loudest voice. His message: Admire the view, before it’s last call and lights out, permanently.

Ricky’s, and life’s complexities, are revealed through seeming ordinary, neighborhood encounters, devised and executed by the Fates themselves. He is designed to affect these lost souls, and none more so than Lester (Kevin Spacey) whom he lives next door to but doesn’t truly “meet” until a chance encounter at a hum-drum cocktail party. It’s here, that Lester takes the stage, inhabiting the role of the film’s ticking time bomb, a catalyst towards fateful ends and wondrous revelations. Lester and Ricky exchange chatter complimented by a shared joint, and the experience proves eye opening to Lester. After viewing Ricky’s off-the-cuff resignation, fully confident and without a care in the world as to what he’ll do next, Lester resurrects a long-dormant spring in his step. From this night, at each step, with every encounter, Lester unfurls his rebel yell, sparking a string of random events that eventually come together and pave the way towards tragic redemption.

In a time where the nightly news is plagued with reports of benevolent day-traders run amok, and corporate drones awakening to find themselves cornered, their only salvation lying in wait through turning on the very establishment of Greed that bred them and raging violently against the machine, Lester’s latent aggression feels alarmingly cathartic. Through Lester we revisit Willy Loman, Arthur Miller’s tragic salesman, merging the fears of corporate downsizing and familiar feelings of unwant and inadequacy with the contemporary epidemic of pre-millennial madness.

Lester’s demons have manifested themselves in the soulless countenance of Big Business, whose minions he views as schoolyard bullies dressed up in Brooks Brothers. He becomes the inevitable descent of the contemporary American male ego, pushing beyond the boundaries of his prime, his past successes fading insignificantly into a muted tapestry of a boring, average life. He has one last hope. He is white man, hear him roar.

Into the mix, Mendes marches a parade of beings in search of meaning, of significance, of soul. Annette Bening’s bored housewife seeks to transcend her complacent lot in life, represented by immaculately tended rose bushes and pre-scheduled passionless sex. In her quest, she grows blind to Lester’s wandering eye, as he begins to lust after his teenage daughter’s best friend, finding her own pleasure in spirited motel trysts with her closest corporate competitor.

Thora Birch portrays the “damaged” daughter who screams silently, hoping against hope to avoid the road traveled by her parents. In Ricky she finds a kindred spirit and her ultimate escape. Chris Cooper’s hardcase ex-marine, a warped rift on the tough-love Dad he portrayed in last year’s October Sky, also proves effective as another soul just barely hanging on in life, crushing the suppressed cries for help and true identity that rage within him.

American Beauty could easily have played as another variation on the theme of contemporary male angst, a cerebral Falling Down. Wisely, Mendes employs Lester’s rebellion as a mere catalyst for deeper, more thoughtful and humane discoveries. As the story unfolds, as the hilarious merges with the tragic and ultimately the poignant, the film emerges as that rare find, where cinema melds with real life, our lives, and unveils beautiful truths about ourselves. Throughout it entrances and haunts, but in the end, Beauty reveals itself as so much more than skin deep.