10 Underrated Movies Everyone Loved At First (But Now Dislikes)
1. American Beauty
The Awesome Movie: American Beauty is one of the greatest directorial debuts of all time, up there with Citizen Kane and Reservoir Dogs as fully-fleshed out, mature first attempts that marked the arrival of a great talent to cinemas. Sam Mendes had considerable theatre experience, and wasn't as young as Welles or Tarantino, but that he made something so astoundingly cinematic and tightly focused is still amazing.
Both a character piece and ensemble drama, the plain dissection of the American Dream through the breakdown (and coincidental final days) of Lester Burnham still feels incredibly on point watching it today, and that's down to how expertly realised a piece of filmmaking it is.
What Happened? American Beauty is flat-out sneered in some circles today. Part of that will be that the film was a massive Oscar smash, winning Picture, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay and Cinematography, meaning a backlash of some sort was all-but guaranteed, although there's more to this than there was with Titanic or The Departed. Looking at the pointed complaints, it has little to do with the objective quality of the film - Sam Mendes remains a lauded industry name and you'd have to fight to not love Kevin Spacey - but rather what it's about.
One way to distill American Beauty is simply as the story of a white, middle-class man having a mid-life crisis in suburbia. In a culture that is increasingly finding itself at odds with being dominated by stories of white, middle-class men and suburbia, the film is at best antiquated and at worst vastly out of touch. And fair enough, if every movie was about Kevin Spacey having the hots for his daughter's best friend and Chris Cooper being in the closet, then it'd be a bit wearisome, but to chastise an expertly made film just because of what it is is ridiculous.
And stop taking the p*ss out of the plastic bag scene. It does its job. End of.
Which other great movies have actually become underrated over time? Share your picks down in the comments.