Editing American Beauty (1999 film) (section)

==Reception and legacy==
===Initial===
''American Beauty'' received overwhelming praise upon release, chiefly for Spacey, Mendes and Ball.<ref name="hentzi 46">{{harvnb|Hentzi|2000|p=46}}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' reported that "no other 1999 movie has benefited from such universal raves."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Chagollan |first=Steve |date=December 15, 1999 |title=Noms Watch: American Beauty |magazine=Variety}}</ref> It was the best-received title at the [[Toronto International Film Festival]] (TIFF),<ref name="bow" /> where it won the People's Choice award after a ballot of the festival's audiences.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Klady |first=Leonard |date=September 20, 1999 |title='Beauty' captures Toronto |magazine=Variety |url=https://variety.com/1999/film/news/beauty-captures-toronto-1117755813/ |access-date=August 12, 2023}}</ref> TIFF's director, Piers Handling, said, "''American Beauty'' was the buzz of the festival, the film most talked-about."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Vlessing |first=Etan |date=September 20, 1999 |title='Beauty' counts at Toronto fest |magazine=The Hollywood Reporter}}</ref>

[[Review aggregator]] [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports that 87% of 190 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics' consensus reads: "Flawlessly cast and brimming with dark, acid wit, ''American Beauty'' is a smart, provocative high point of late '90s mainstream Hollywood film."<ref>{{Cite web |title=American Beauty (1999) |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_beauty |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126202836/https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_beauty |archive-date=January 26, 2021 |access-date=February 2, 2021 |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |language=en}}</ref> According to [[Metacritic]], which assigned a [[Weighted arithmetic mean|weighted average score]] of 84 out of 100 based on 34 critics, the film received "universal acclaim".<ref>{{Cite web |title=American Beauty Reviews |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/american-beauty |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421160936/https://www.metacritic.com/movie/american-beauty |archive-date=April 21, 2021 |access-date=February 2, 2021 |website=[[Metacritic]]}}</ref>

[[Roger Ebert]] of the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'', who awarded the film four out of four stars, singled Spacey out for successfully portraying a man who "does reckless and foolish things [but who] doesn't deceive himself".<ref name="ebert">{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |date=September 23, 1999 |title=American Beauty movie review & film summary (1999) |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/american-beauty-1999 |url-status=live |access-date=August 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809113215/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/american-beauty-1999 |archive-date=August 9, 2020 |via=rogerebert.com}}</ref> Kevin Jackson of ''[[Sight & Sound]]'' said Spacey impressed in ways distinct from his previous performances, the most satisfying aspect being his portrayal of "both sap and hero".<ref name="jackson" />

===Retrospective===
A few months after the release of ''American Beauty'', reports of a backlash appeared in the American press. In the years since the film's release, its critical regard has waned. A significant factor was its themes being seen as trivial after the [[September 11 attacks]] and the [[Great Recession|Great Recession of late 2007 to 2009]].<ref name="backlash" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Joel |date=June 22, 2001 |title=The Tube Has Few Intriguing Choices to Offer |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jEogAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J6YEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6891%2C4091803 |page=14 |work=[[The Tuscaloosa News]] |access-date=May 15, 2023}}</ref><ref name="lowenstein 271-272">{{harvnb|Lowenstein|2008|pages=271–272}}</ref>

In 2005, ''[[Premiere (magazine)|Premiere]]'' named ''American Beauty'' as one of 20 "most overrated movies of all time."<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=September 2005 |title=The 20 most overrated movies of all time |magazine=[[Premiere (magazine)|Premiere]] |volume=19 |issue=1 |page=103 |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_premiere_2005-09_19_1/page/n104/mode/1up |access-date=May 15, 2023}}</ref> Mendes accepted the inevitability of the critical reappraisal, saying in 2008, "I thought some of it was entirely justified—it was a little overpraised at the time."<ref name="lowenstein 271-272" />

In 2017, [[Kevin Spacey sexual misconduct allegations|allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against actor Kevin Spacey]] surfaced at the height of the [[MeToo movement]], including by men who were underage at the time of the allegations.<ref>{{cite news |title=Actor Anthony Rapp: Kevin Spacey Made A Sexual Advance Toward Me When I Was 14 |work=[[BuzzFeed News]] |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adambvary/anthony-rapp-kevin-spacey-made-sexual-advance-when-i-was-14 |url-status=live |access-date=August 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719035422/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adambvary/anthony-rapp-kevin-spacey-made-sexual-advance-when-i-was-14 |archive-date=July 19, 2018}}</ref> This led many critics and one of Spacey's accusers, actor [[Anthony Rapp]], to find uncomfortable parallels between Spacey and Lester Burnham, his character in ''American Beauty''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Kevin Spacey Accuser Anthony Rapp Says Watching Actor Seduce Teenager in 'American Beauty' Was 'Unpleasantly Familiar' |url=https://variety.com/2022/film/news/kevin-spacey-accuser-anthony-rapp-watching-american-beauty-trial-1235399148/ |website=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=October 11, 2022 |access-date=August 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011162759/https://variety.com/2022/film/news/kevin-spacey-accuser-anthony-rapp-watching-american-beauty-trial-1235399148/ |archive-date=October 11, 2022}}</ref>

In 2019, on the twentieth anniversary of the film's release, ''[[The Huffington Post]]''{{'}}s Matthew Jacobs wrote that "the film's reputation has tumbled precipitously," adding, "Plenty of classics undergo cultural reappraisals [...] but few have turned into such a widespread punchline."<ref name="HuffPost 20th anniversary story">{{Cite web |last=Jacobs |first=Matthew |date=September 9, 2019 |title=The Steady Cultural Demise Of 'American Beauty' |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-beauty-legacy-20-years-later_n_5d5c344fe4b0d1e1136902be |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190910080054/https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-beauty-legacy-20-years-later_n_5d5c344fe4b0d1e1136902be |archive-date=September 10, 2019 |access-date=September 10, 2019 |website=[[The Huffington Post]]}}</ref>

In ''[[The Guardian]]'', critic Guy Lodge wrote "the pushback against ''American Beauty'' in the intervening two decades has been swift and merciless – taking root well before Spacey's personal and professional downfall, though that certainly hasn't helped. Ask film critics of various ages about it now and you will tend to meet with a uniform sneer, along with a blanket dismissal of its cheap-shot picket-fence satire, its broad characterisation, its purportedly misogynistic view of career women, or its awestruck command of metaphor as flimsy and floaty as, well, a plastic bag dancing in the breeze." Lodge also stated, "You might hear grudging acknowledgement of its formal artistry, including the satin tactility of the late Conrad L Hall's cinematography, or the eerie, echo-y, endlessly imitated percussion of Thomas Newman's once-ubiquitous score. But that, too, is tempered with dismissiveness toward its makers."<ref name="Lodge">{{cite news |last1=Lodge |first1=Guy |title=American Beauty at 20: is the Oscar-winning hit worth a closer look? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/13/american-beauty-20th-anniversary-analysis |access-date=August 12, 2023 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=September 13, 2019}}</ref>

Similar to Matthew Jacobs's assessment, [[Stephanie Zacharek]] for ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' wrote, "In 2019, beating up on Sam Mendes' multi-Oscar-winning ''American Beauty'' [...] is so painfully easy that it seems unfair. The Best Picture winner has fallen largely out of fashion; it rarely appears on critics' lists of favorite movies, and its memory seems to have faded for most moviegoers, too."<ref name=Zacharek>{{cite magazine |last1=Zacharek |first1=Stephanie |title=American Beauty Was Bad 20 Years Ago and It's Bad Now. But It Still Has Something to Tell Us |url=https://time.com/5679039/american-beauty-20th-anniversary/ |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=September 18, 2019 |access-date=July 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109143136/https://time.com/5679039/american-beauty-20th-anniversary/?xid=tcoshare |archive-date=January 9, 2021}}</ref> Zacharek concluded, "''American Beauty'' is a movie about a privileged white guy who feels bad about himself and tries to rectify that by exploding his life—only to lose it all in the end. It's about a man who thought he had control, but didn't—and who can't, at the very least, relate to that? In the context of his own crisis of self-absorption, Lester Burnham couldn't see the real collision course looming ahead, a future of [[Great Recession|lost jobs and foreclosures]], of madhouse doublespeak issuing from the mouths of people whose job it is to lead us, of [[War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)|wars that can't be won]] and thus keep being fought. Maybe it takes a look back at a ridiculous movie to show us how much we've really lost. Whatever Ball's 'authentic life' really is, you can bet it's not being lived on [[Instagram]]."<ref name=Zacharek/>

Nonetheless, other critics still defend the artistic value of the film. In 2014, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the movie, ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'s'' Ashley Fetters stated that ''American Beauty'' stands as "a classic, if not a masterpiece."<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Examining 'American Beauty' at 15: A masterpiece, or a farce? |last1=Fetters |first1=Ashley |last2=Zuckerman |first2=Esther |date=September 15, 2014 |url=https://ew.com/article/2014/09/15/american-beauty-15th-anniversary/ |url-status=live |magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213045551/https://ew.com/article/2014/09/15/american-beauty-15th-anniversary/ |archive-date=December 13, 2022 |access-date=December 13, 2022}}</ref> Guy Lodge acknowledged the film's flaws but admitted it still "turns out to be an exquisitely presented time capsule, a snapshot of middle-class, notionally liberal white society entering a spasm of panic at the turn of both the century and the [[Presidency of Bill Clinton|Clinton era]]. Its satire isn't sophisticated, but it's pointed, identifiable, and still often cuttingly funny, emblematic of a tone of withering pre-[[millennial]] snark that has since been earnestly outmoded, and not for the wittier. It was never intended as straightforward drama, but as garish suburban burlesque: a distorted funhouse mirror reflection of America already at its ugliest, with its performances and petal-strewn visuals expertly heightened to match."<ref name="Lodge" /> Lodge concluded, "Twenty years on, ''American Beauty'' isn't as clever as we thought it was, though it's inadvertently aged into a kind of wounded, embattled wisdom. Perhaps it's worth looking closer".<ref name="Lodge" />

===In popular culture===
The film was spoofed by the [[animated sitcom]] ''[[Family Guy]]'',<ref name="HuffPost 20th anniversary story" /> the 2001 [[Todd Solondz]] film ''[[Storytelling (film)|Storytelling]]'', the teen movie spoof ''[[Not Another Teen Movie]]'', the 2011 animated cartoon series ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]'' and in the 2005 [[DreamWorks Animation|DreamWorks animated film]] ''[[Madagascar (2005 film)|Madagascar]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=December 8, 2005 |title=Madagascar |website=IGN |url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2005/12/08/madagascar |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025163328/https://www.ign.com/articles/2005/12/08/madagascar |archive-date=October 25, 2021 |access-date=October 25, 2021}}</ref>