Here are some reviews for a movie: 1. Very clever, hugely entertaining.
2. Easily one of the year's best films.
3. This cinematic rose is truly the one to pick.
4. This chronicle of suburban families imploding in slow motion contains genuine laughs, but they escape through clenched teeth.
5. American Beauty mesmerizes because every moment, however caricatured, hits a nerve in each of us.
6. Kevin Spacey's work in the movie is the best film acting that he has ever done.
7. It truly, honestly makes me see the beauty in the world, a goal not many films have achieved. In short, it gives me pause.
8. Silky, seductive and unsettling, American Beauty is an dazzling piece of movie-making, nimbly shifting from dark comedy to drama to horror to pure poetry and back again.
9. American Beauty takes its place among the best family dramas of recent decades.
10. Wildly funny and unpredictable.

What was the overall consensus about the movie?
Flawlessly cast and brimming with dark, acid wit, American Beauty is a smart, provocative high point of late '90s mainstream Hollywood film.