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It all goes to show that beauty really is skin deep.

You see, on the surface, American Beauty is delightful. It has a superb cast, genuinely funny moments and a directorial style that is both considered and honest. Throughout much of it, we are carried along in pure enjoyment as cast and script echo the story of how Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) awakens from the lifestyle slumber of middle age.

It's a story that is told in a touching and well-meant manner. A tightly controlled sampling of demographics forces our perspective and directs our sympathies in favour of Burnham whose lusts for a seventeen-year old girl assist in steering him towards this spiritual awakening.

We see two girls on the brink of adulthood with their heads and tails view of how life is; we see the obsessive mother; the comedy gay couple; the tightly sprung ex-army man and his zombie of a wife and we see their son - a detached product of his upbringing who provides the window to observation.

It's all there. It's a film that could have reached out to an audience with its considered observations . The trouble is, this film doesn't so much observe as it does reaffirm. It's one for the mutual appreciation society who believe they're a little bit different; that they can spot the cracks in the self-erected pillars of society.

Well gosh, there's a surprise.

The revelation that nine-to-five jobs are filled with backstabbing, weak-minded, morally defunct individuals whose place in society offers less than working in MacDonald's is bound to shake up the establishment. If only Douglas Coupland had thought of this.

The revelation that Mr Tight Ass Army Man has a secret, that salespeople put up a fa?ade and that teenagers might just hate their parents is equally insightful.

It's a shame really. With a little more courage, American Beauty could have been as bold and fresh as The Graduate. It does mean well. It is well made. It just doesn't offer anything new. And that's where the frustration lies. How often does such a cast come together and work so fluently at fleshing out their roles as they do here? American Beauty is a film that hints at greatness and with a little more maturity, may well have attained it.

Having said that, you have to admit that the film may well have a point when the lady sitting next to you starts singing along to the mind numbing, easy listening music of one of the film's more neurotic characters...

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