At first blush, American Beauty seemed grand, dark, and subversive (especially to the angst-riddled mind of a high school sophomore not old enough to buy tickets for R-rated movies). The raciness of the opening scene—a found-footage camcorder clip of Jane (a pallid Thora Birch), reclining on a bed in post-sex flush, telling the camera that she wished her dad wasn’t a "horny geek boy" and "doesn’t deserve to live"—was enough to hook right into a swirling teenage psyche. The movie’s themes pander directly to the narcissism of the young—libidinous individualism, the triumph of youth over cynicism, the beauty of ordinary things (i.e. dead birds, plastic bags) over empty materialism. We responded naively and passionately—the desired effect. But we were just kids! What is so confounding now about American Beauty is how adults endorsed such juvenilia.

The New York Post called it "a flat-out masterpiece" and "an all-time classic." According to Andrew Sarris at the New York Observer, American Beauty was "brilliantly acted, written, and directed." Variety’s Todd McCarthy predicted that the movie would do "exceedingly well to sophisticated audiences attuned to the film’s caustic wit and mischievous sensibility." McCarthy also praised the film as "independent minded" and as "a real American original." The Los Angeles Times’s Kenneth Turan considered American Beauty’s exploration of the hollow space behind the American dream as "unsettling, unnerving, undefinable," adding it was, "one hell of a movie." Writing for the New York Times, Janet Maslin applauded director Sam Mendes for "beautifully" crafting a movie whose "gravity" matched its "evil zest." Maslin also says: "As these characters struggle viciously—and hilariously—to escape the middle-class doldrums, the film also evinces a real and ever more stirring compassion." Shortly after the film’s release, the Boston Globe dubbed American Beauty a "millennial classic."

In 1999, Disney sank $141,000 into Oscar advertising for The Sixth Sense and a $198,000 on _The Insider _(which, according to rumors around town, was perfunctory because ecs at Disney didn’t like The Insider very much). Warner Brothers pumped $313,000 into The Green Mile and, as always, the big spender and shameless campaigner, Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax put $350,000 into The Cider House Rules. DreamWorks, by contrast, put in a whopping $744,000 in Oscar ads, including six full-page ads in Variety at $29,000 a pop. It’s said that the American Beauty campaign was payback for the previous year’s defeat at the hands of Miramax—when Shakespeare in Love upset DreamWorks’ shoo-in prestige picture, Saving Private Ryan. In terms of momentum, American Beauty dominated at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Writer’s Guild Awards, and Critic’s Choice Awards. The WGA prize is particularly unsettling—it beat out Three Kings, Being John Malkovich, and Magnolia—because while Mendes’s direction is striking, alive with lush, wide-angle shots and his playful use of theater techniques (spotlight, terrifying visual symmetry) and his ensemble cast is undoubtedly gold-plated, the writing is stomach-churningly bad.

Here’s where dark-lipsticked Jane confronts her dad about ogling her best friend:

JANE: I’ve been too embarrassed to bring her over. Because of you, and the way that you behave.

LESTER: What are you talking about? I’ve barely even spoken to her.

JANE: Dad! You stare at her all the time, like you’re drunk! It’s disgusting!

LESTER: You better watch yourself, Janie, or you’re going to turn into a real bitch, just like your mother.

Why the appeal of Lester and Janie’s suburban gothic? Answer: William Wallace, Oskar Schindler, whatever Kate and Leo’s names were in Titanic. American Beauty was the first non-epic/historical movie to win a Best Picture Oscar in nine years (all costumes since 1991’s Silence of the Lambs win). Its focus is on a modern dysfunctional family, rather than gorgeous people peacocking in period garb—though looking back, it is a bit of a schlock costume drama for the late ’90s, no? There’s Annette Bening as the castrating bitch in a proto-Kate Gosselin severe cropcut, outfitted in a career-friendly Ann Taylor skirt and gray blazer. And Chris Cooper, as the homophobe marine/secret queen in his earnest crewcut and high-waisted pants. Between them, it seemed the most artful incarnation of a year dominated by an empire’s discontents. In Fight Club, Office Space, and American Beauty the main characters tell their bosses to fuck off, but they remain on the payroll. Lester, played by Kevin Spacey, has a much broader appeal than Tyler Durden or Peter Gibbons. Nevertheless, even those of us who were enchanted by the slacker ethos and anti-hero narrative then, know better now. Dare I say, popular consensus, among ’80s babies, is that American Beauty is a bad movie. This is why: