By Steve Ramos

With director Sam Mendes' dysfunctional family drama American Beauty, Hollywood presents the new millennium man.

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a 42-year-old, mid-level magazine writer about to lose his job. Life at home has dissolved into a sexless marriage with his shrewish, real-estate agent wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening) and a vacant relationship with his rebellious teen-age daughter, Jane (Thora Birch).

But Lester's desire for one of Jane's pretty friends, Angela (Mena Suvari), jolts his miserable life. He feels emotions he hasn't felt in years. Inevitably, his path of redemption is fraught with trouble.

American Beauty has won numerous awards including the Best Picture Oscar. It's earned truckloads of money. All of which means that dark stories about men-in-crisis are destined to become Hollywood's next big thing. The Y2K moviemade image of masculinity is one of damaged goods.

Early into the film, Lester is worn and haggard. But then he glimpses Angela, while watching his daughter perform a half-time cheerleader number of "On Broadway," and that glimpse gives him the newfound energy of a hormone-driven teen-age boy.

"Any friend of Janey's is a friend of mine," Lester gushes to Angela.

American Beauty resonates with us through Spacey's dazzling, complex performance. But Lester remains a powerful, moviemade image because he captures the middle-class, American male mentality so well. Here is the cinematic equivalent of John Updike's long-standing literary hero, the thoroughly damaged Rabbit Angstrom.

Lester isn't the only damaged man to hit theaters recently. Matthew Broderick's frustrated high school history teacher battled a too-perky student (Reese Witherspoon) in writer/director Alexander Payne's subversive comedy Election. Ed Norton played a schizo corporate burnout paired with beefcake Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Russell Crowe's troubled whistle-blower stole the spotlight from Al Pacino in The Insider. George Clooney was a morally bereft Gulf War bandit in Three Kings. Christian Bale was a Wall Street serial killer in American Psycho. First-time feature filmmaker Spike Jonze dove into the failed life of a struggling puppeteer (John Cusack) with his comic masterwork, Being John Malkovich. In Jonze's tale, the puppeteer uses a mysterious portal to send people into actor Malkovich's brain. Jim Carrey was almost too believable as space cadet Andy Kaufman in director Milos Forman's bio-drama Man on the Moon.

These new male protagonists of Hollywood's damaged men's club follow in the footsteps of the dysfunctional buddies of Neil LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors, the troubled pervert of Todd Solondz's Happiness and the out-of-control bachelors in actor/director Peter Berg's Very Bad Things. Of course, Adrian Lyne's Lolita remake reminds us that all sexually frustrated men owe a debt to Nabokov. But on the subject of male dysfunction, Matt Damon's performance as an all-American psychopath in The Talented Mr. Ripley was unnervingly potent.

Political pundits attack American Beauty for its lack of moral content. In their eyes, the image of Lester and his teen-age blonde is too similar to President Clinton and a certain brunette intern. But men in movie audiences know that they are all just as horny as Lester Burnham. We forgive Clinton and Lester equally. More importantly, we hope others will treat us the same during our own infidelities.

The American male, as confirmed by American Beauty, is an ordinary-looking, middle-aged washout, sexually frustrated, emotionally fraught and thoroughly sarcastic. Yet, audiences don't hate Lester. We are sensitive to his pain and suffering. We applaud his increased moments of substance and intelligence. We look at the cinema screen and see a reflection of ourselves. That's probably why American Beauty continues to get more and more under our skin with each subsequent viewing.

Action heroes come and go with alarming speed. Today's Ben Affleck is yesterday's Jean-Claude Van Damme. The big-screen antics of Sylvester Stallone, Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris have grown stale. Even Brit spy boy James Bond looks tired and outdated after 37 years of big-screen adventures. One telltale sign of Lester's vacant existence is that he can't pull himself away from watching "Seven Nights of James Bond" on cable TV. For Lester, excitement is a Bond TV rerun.

There will always be action heroes, formula comedians and Tom Hanks-like nice guys. At least for now, the dysfunctional male is enjoying the Hollywood spotlight.

Personally, I hope he never goes away. ©

E-mail Steve Ramos

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