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Movies

'American Beauty,' if only there were words to describe ...

Kevin Spacey dreams about his teen-age daughter's friend in "American Beauty"

September 29, 1999
Web posted at: 1:11 p.m. EDT (1711 GMT)

Mark Scheerer
CNN Entertainment News Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "American Beauty" has become one of the most talked-about films of the year, quite a surprise to some critics, who consider it to have been written by a "first-time" film screenwriter and directed by a "first-time" film director.

It releases nationwide October 1, and while it would be convenient to explain "American Beauty" in a simple summary, that's not easy to do. Even the film's key actors -- Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch -- have trouble.

"It's one of those films that kind of defies the 10-second blurb," says Spacey, who plays Lester Burnham.

Bening, who plays Burnham's wife Carolyn, agrees. "It's hard to describe this movie," she says, "but it's very original and beautifully done. I'm so proud of it."

"I think you can say what it's about," says 17-year-old Birch, who plays daughter Jane. "But it's so open to interpretation. And each person will come away with different things and relate to different characters, and that's what's wonderful about it."


"The one thing that she has is her cuteness ... . So she kind of turns it around and uses it against him, and plays with him, and manipulates."

-- Mena Suvari on her character,
Angela, in "American Beauty"


An infatuation is the screenplay's catalyst. Lester is drawn to Jane's teen-age friend Angela, played by Mena Suvari (who goes from "American Pie" to "American Beauty").

"Her personality kind of sucks," Suvari says. "The one thing that she has is her cuteness, and she picks up on that energy from him. So she kind of turns it around and uses it against him, and plays with him, and manipulates. It's like a game."

Thora Birch plays the frustrated teen-age daughter

Spacey buff

Lester's obsession drives him to the garage and free weights. That meant Spacey had to undergo a physical transformation in the course of this film.

"Lester goes through not only a spiritual and emotional reawakening, but he gets pumped up," Spacey says. "I had to work with a trainer for about four months and then every day on the set, twice a day."

As usual, when Hollywood doesn't know talented people, it refers to those folks as "new" and "first-time" -- the "overnight successes" of the business. The reality, of course, is that the "new" writer and "first-time" director of "American Beauty" are neither new nor first-time except to mainstream film studios.

British director Sam Mendes, 34, has worked primarily in theater -- albeit on some of England's most honored stages such as those of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon and in London. In the United States, Mendes was nominated for a 1998 Tony for his direction of the Roundabout Theatre's Broadway revival of "Cabaret." And he staged the past season's limited run at Broadway's Cort Theatre of David Hare's "The Blue Room."

"He seemed to know so much more than it would be appropriate for a first-time (film) director to know," Bening says. "I still don't understand how he knows what he knows."

And the screenplay is the film industry's first big look at theater and television writer and producer Alan Ball, 42. His scripts have been staged in New York's off- and off-off-Broadway theaters for years, as in his 1993 "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" for Manhattan Class Company. He's written on sitcoms including "Cybill" and "Grace Under Fire" and is a writer-executive behind the creation of the new Wednesday night ABC comedy "Oh Grow Up."

Spacey says Ball penned "one of the most unique, striking, funny and moving screenplays" he's ever come across.


RELATED STORIES:
Review: 'American Beauty' is just that
September 17, 1999
Spacey, Bening win Boston Fest awards
September 13, 1999

RELATED SITE:
'American Beauty' official site
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