Everything was going well for “American Beauty” in March 2000.
According to the data site Box Office Mojo, the box office made almost $350 million globally, without including inflation, on a budget of about $15 million. great reviews in The Los Angeles Times, where Kenneth Turan described the image as “a hell of a picture.” Three Golden Globes.
In a recent phone call from his Los Angeles home, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Alan Ball remarked, “It was strange, because I thought it was a small art house film.” “I don’t think any of us anticipated it to be anything more.”
Annette Bening, who portrayed a materialistic wife in Ball’s comedy about a suburban family whose father, Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), quits his office job and gets fixated on his teenage daughter’s best friend, stated, “I had no idea it was going to become what it became.”
More accolades followed: five Oscars, including best film, actor (Spacey), director (Sam Mendes), original screenplay (Ball), and cinematography (Conrad L. Hall).
Mendes, who joined Delbert Mann, Jerome Robbins, Robert Redford, James L. Brooks, and Kevin Costner as the only directors to receive the Academy Awards’ top directing accolade for their feature directorial debut, stated in his acceptance speech, “I’m a little bit overwhelmed.”
Ball recalled the incident and remarked, “I had a flask in my pocket.” “I could only sort of deal with it that way.”
The movie, according to critics, was a welcome departure from the usual high-concept Hollywood picture formula: It was a victory for bolder filmmaking after a decade dominated by historical dramas like “Shakespeare in Love” and “Titanic.” The film provided a release for the misery of middle-class suburbanites who were dissatisfied with their comfortable jobs and beautiful homes in wealthy communities at a prosperous time when the unemployment rate in America was about 4%.
