American Beauty (1999)

Sam Mendes' American Beauty is the story of some people in a suburban town. The film mostly focuses on the life of a family, particularly the husband, and the people in their life. The husband is tired of his job and falls in love with his daughter's best friend. The wife is trying to be a successful real estate agent and eventually has an affair with an even more successful one to advance her own career. Their daughter is insecure with herself and eventually discovers a love interest. Overall, I found this film to be rather interesting.

The lead role goes to Kevin Spacy. In this film he was fairly outstanding and would win an Oscar for his performance. His wife, played by Annette Bening, also does an excellent job. Her role probably wasn't significant enough to win best actress, and she did not win losing to Hilary Swank. In addition to the two leads, I found the supporting cast to be quite good as well.

Overall, this film is mostly about the lives of somewhat ordinary people. There are a few themes here and there but I don't think they are particularly necessary to enjoy this film. This film was highly successful winning five Oscars including best picture. This film was just a best actress Oscar shy of becoming just the fourth film ever to sweep the five main categories. I'd recommend this to most anyone although young children and very easily offended people might want to skip it.

87/100
B+