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CHRONIC
INCONSUMMATION
Sam
Mendes’ American
Beauty is another of those
chilled morality tales, much like Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm,
speaking about—but not necessarily to—Americans wallowing in
their glaring amorality and materialism; in short, the movies are lectures
about us from directors who don’t really know us. Shortly into
AB, Kevin Spacey is irritated by not being able to watch
the James Bond marathon on TNT when in fact the Bond series ran as a virtual
exclusive on TBS at the time of the making of this picture. It’s not a minor
point to quibble over; while it may mean less for the British-born
Cambridge-educated director to miss the error, it’s not okay for born-in-the-U.S.A. Spacey and smartass screenwriter Alan Ball, neither of whom ignorant
of media noise, to skip over this telling detail which almost
fatally alters our receptiveness. On the Internet, it’s been written
this movie is “high concept,” but once we’re into the movie’s limpy, hackneyed throbs of probable danger—especially in regard
to a pro-Nazi closet case—everything becomes “low information”
expectant and the only heightened achievement is in our feeling of being
had. If Mendes and Ball believe they’re onto something scoldingly revelatory,
the rest of us will likely conclude they’ve clogged transmissions via the
tiresome drug of convenient harpiness. (As one writer put it, once more it’s
“the suburbs as soulless enclaves full of cul de sacs that end in
ruin.”) American
Beauty is a more
entertaining reproach than Lee’s; at least we can laugh at the fractured
mumblings—like the spooky clear-eyed drug pusher’s Cybill-inspired self-estimation he’s the “best piece of ass
in three states” and he sells for two grand government-grown grass
genetically engineered to eliminate the paranoia. And also laugh at Spacey’s taunting job
resignation. The actor is, though, tepid; he’s never much involved—detached,
even chronically inconsummate, both as character and personality. (Is this
why he won an Oscar—because he never cums? What man could if dressed
for bed in a t-shirt and heavy-duty p.j.s? He’s much more effective in
the detestable Hurlyburly and, despite his age, as Bobby Darin
in Beyond the Sea.) His wrap-up narration may have been stolen
from Glenn Close’s in Reversal of Fortune. By all accounts,
Annette Bening expected to win an Oscar for her performance, which isn’t
only presumptuous it’s also evidence of self-delusion. She’s the current
Screen Queen of Shrill—a snot-nosed bitch, a disguised dullard. Viewers
familiar with HBO’s Six Feet Under will note some origins in
AB—Ball’s use of death to get into subjects like
familial dysfunction, sex and homosexuality, drugs, social mores. Though
it’s been too long since watching the complete series on DVD, I still reel
from a variety of emotions and hope one day to have more to say about the
show when my mind reassembles from all the discombobulation. But here’s
a sneak preview: no other entertainment I can think of has a greater set
of Scenes from the Kitchen.
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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com
Text COPYRIGHT © 2005 RALPH BENNER
Revised 11/2008 All Rights Reserved. |