American Beauty By Sam Mendes: Film Analysis

Sam Mendes’ 1999 film American Beauty offers a narrative that subverts the idea that suburban neighborhoods are the perfect setting in which to raise a family. Instead, the film portrays the suburbs as “spaces of conformity, dysfunction, and repression” (Smicek 2014, p.43). Through the use of its almost caricature-like characters that at times lose themselves in ridiculous and morally corrupt behaviors, American Beauty exposes a darker side of the very familiar domestic ideal of suburban life. The film itself does not reveal any hidden truths about suburban life, but instead puts a magnifying glass on what would be considered completely mundane problems and flaws – “midlife crisis, obsessive fascinations, sexuality, personal success, extramarital affairs, and the difficulties and debauchery of many suburban families” (Papajcik, 2006, p.11-12) – if they did not happen to people who live with the pressure of achieving domestic and social perfection. Beuka (as …show more content…
It is important to mention, however, that this paper does not generalize the American suburbs as a dystopia nor does it make the assumption that all people living in the suburbs experience the above mentioned pressure. Instead, this paper takes a critical look at the “utopian idea” of the suburbs and the possible disillusionment if that idea is literally interpreted as it is by the characters in American Beauty. In such cases, due to disillusionment, people experience life in the suburbs less as a utopia, but more as a dystopia. In this paper, the term dystopia describes living in misery due to the perceived need to conform to a culturally deterministic system that imprisons independent thought, as well as the negative consequences of overpowering materialism as they are shown in the