10 Movies That Aged Badly For Surprising Reasons

7. American Beauty (1999)

American Beauty Kevin Spacey
DreamWorks

Starring Anette Bening, Thora Birch, and Mena Suvari, this movie is the story of a woman and her insecure daughter coming to terms with how her white-collar, comfortable living husband is going through a mid-life crisis and fantasizes about the daughter's promiscuous best friend.

Even though praise for the movie has diminished in the years since its release there are still a lot of fans who think the movie is great. So how has it aged badly, if it is still so resonating to the middle class and such a premier vision of a mid-life crisis?

Oh right; because it is also starring actor Kevin Spacey as the guy who suffers a mid-life crisis and burns basically every bridge he can in the process. Spacey's character, in particular, fantasizes about Mena Suvari's character - his teenage daughter's friend from high school.

This is a poignant discussion about sexuality within the movie, especially when he is finally about to have sex with her and she admits that all her talk about being promiscuous is an act and she's actually a virgin. With the news breaking in 2017 about allegations against Spacey regarding assaulting minors, it makes the whole 'Spacey's character is infatuated with an underage girl' a real problem.

A lot of people now have a hard time distancing Spacey's character from the real cringe-factor of watching a known pedophile fawn over a teenager. At least we can relax a bit in the knowledge that Suvari, herself, was actually 20 when the movie came out.

Contributor
Contributor

Author of Escort (Eternal Press, 2015), co-founder of Nic3Ntertainment, and developer behind The Sickle Upon Sekigahara (2020). Currently freelancing as a game developer and history consultant. Also tends to travel the eastern U.S. doing courses on History, Writing, and Japanese Poetry. You can find his portfolio at www.richardcshaffer.com.