What is American Beauty (movie)?
{{italictitle}} {{Infobox movie | name = American Beauty | image = | image_size = | caption = | director = [[Sam Mendes]] | producer = [[Bruce Cohen]] <br /> [[Dan Jinks]] | writer = [[Alan Ball (screenwriter)|Alan Ball]] | starring = [[Kevin Spacey]]<br />[[Annette Bening]]<br />[[Thora Birch]]<br />[[Allison Janney]]<br />[[Peter Gallagher]]<br />[[Mena Suvari]]<br />[[Wes Bentley]]<br />[[Chris Cooper]] | music = [[Thomas Newman]] | cinematography = [[Conrad L. Hall]] | editing = [[Tariq Anwar]]<br />[[Christopher Greenbury]] | studio = Jinks/Cohen Company | distributor = [[DreamWorks|DreamWorks Pictures]] | released = September 8, 1999 ([[Grauman's Egyptian Theatre]]) <br /> September 11, 1999 ([[TIFF]]) <br /> September 15, 1999 (United States) | runtime = 122 minutes | country = United States | language = English | budget = $15 million | gross = $356.3 million }} '''''American Beauty''''' is a 1999 [[United States|American]] [[drama movie]] [[movie director|directed]] by [[Sam Mendes]] and [[screenwriter|written]] by [[Alan Ball (screenwriter)|Alan Ball]]. [[Kevin Spacey]] stars as Lester Burnham, an advertising executive who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, played by [[Mena Suvari]]. [[Annette Bening]] stars as Lester's materialistic wife, Carolyn, and [[Thora Birch]] plays their insecure daughter, Jane. [[Wes Bentley]], [[Chris Cooper]], and [[Allison Janney]] also feature. Academics have described the movie as a satire of American middle-class notions of beauty and personal satisfaction; further analysis has focused on the film's explorations of romantic and paternal love, sexuality, materialism, self-liberation, and redemption. Ball began writing ''American Beauty'' as a play in the early 1990s, partly inspired by the media circus that accompanied the [[Amy Fisher]] trial in 1992. He shelved the play after deciding that th