 How does the author feel about American Beauty?
Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. But the makers of American Beauty are about to give Lester his roses back. But American Beauty doesn't feel primitive. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie.
 It is wittily written and gorgeously directed.
 It is moronic or insane or both.  It is wittily written and gorgeously directed.  It is lustrously hip and aware.  It is an invigorating last of counterculture righteousness.