American Beauty (1999) - Sam Mendes

Doing Film Studies as a degree, at a well respected university in North West England, there are certain assumptions: 1) you watch film in spare time, as well as in class, 2) you know your stuff on films, 3) you won't get a job at the end of it. Other than the third one (hopefully), these rules are true for me, which makes me wonder why I have not seen this stupendous piece of American cinema before.
The film, starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch as an average American family; as all families have, they have some troubles, but these troubles become more prominent, when the father of the family, played by Spacey, winning an Oscar for his troubles, develops an infatuation with his daughter's best friend, played by Mena Suvari, in a role the opposite of her most remembered performance as Heather in American Pie (1999) - Paul Weitz (you know, the semi-attractive choir girl that Oz gets with.) So yeah, a good cast, expertly headed by Spacey, and I think this film is proof that a good casting director, in this case, Debra Zane, can make or break a film.
The appearance of the petals are a great piece of prop work, that give them so much significance, that I know viewers will remember the film whenever they see any kind of romantic flower-y stuff.
Bad points would be the character of the creepy filmer dude's romance. I don't get what makes him attractive. He is just creepy. That part was a bit too unrealistic to me, but in the end it didn't matter, as it was negated by all the positive points I could find in the film.
Watching it, finally, made me understand certain jokes from pop culture: ones that I remembered from Family Guy and Not Another Teen Movie (2001) - Joel Gallen as well, which is nice.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

PS This is my first five starrer. Yay!