 Which of the following terms best describes the reviewer's opinion of Bening's acting performance in "American Beauty," compared to her previous acting roles:
He peers through tired eyes out the window at his manicured suburban tract-house lawn, where his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening)--whose gardening clogs, he points out, are color-coordinated with the handles of her shears--snips roses (American beauties) and twitters about Miracle-Gro to a gay yuppie (Scott Bakula) on the other side of a white picket fence. 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.
 redemptive
 empowering  muddled  redemptive  distasteful