Virgin Suicides

"The Virgin Suicides" is a touching, artistic film which transforms you through various stages of grief to realize what you already knew all along - Suicide is pointless. The film focuses on the lives of five teenage sisters from the perspective of the teenage boys who adore them. It's warm, funny, and totally engaging…not to mention a soundtrack to die for! There are incredible moments of cinematography - images that burn like when mother Kathleen Turner insists that her daughter, Kirsten Dunst burn her rock albums, Kiss, Aerosmith….the overwhelming stench and smoke billows out the doorway behind her when Kathleen throws the rest in the trash…and without a flinch she re-enters the billowing doorway. Only a few rocky transitions between scenes catch you by surprise and pull you out of Sophia's incredible imagination and back to your theatre seat. With wonderful performances by Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, James Woods and the rest and powerful directing by Sophia Coppola…you're left wondering as any friend or parent would - "why?" "Didn't they know we loved them?"

25 years ago in an affluent Detroit suburb, math teacher Ronald Lisbon (James Woods) and his wife (Kathleen Turner) have five beautiful girls. The neighborhood boys led by Tim Winer are all fascinated by them. The youngest Cecilia (Hanna Hall) tries to kill herself. Psychiatrist Dr. Horniker (Danny DeVito) tells the strict parents to let the girls interact with boys. They throw a party for the girls but Cecilia throws herself out the window impaling on the iron fence spikes. Father Moody (Scott Glenn) tries to comfort the family. Cecilia haunts everybody. Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) is the most outgoing and catches the eye of hunky Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett). Lux and the sisters Mary (A.J. Cook), Therese (Leslie Hayman) and Bonnie (Chelse Swain) would always hang out together. After a night out, the girls are kept inside with little outside contact.

Sofia Coppola brings a floating sad mysterious moodiness to the movie. She creates an unique dreamy vibe. The girls are fascinating but like the neighborhood boys, they remain a mystery throughout the movie to me. They feel like something imaginary that one can't get a hold of. That is very fascinating but after awhile, it's also very tiresome. We are forever outsiders looking in. I love the music, the mood and the style but I still want more.

"The Virgin Suicides" is a sort of mixed bag. It's a beautiful made movie with wonderful directed sequences in it but the storytelling doesn't always makes sense and is simply terrible lacking at times. A case of 'style over substance' you can perhaps conclude.

It isn't always clear in the movie where the movie is heading to. This is mainly because there are often characters introduced in the movie, who once after they are out of the story, make you wonder what exactly their purpose for the movie was. Characters come and go in this movie and once you think that they are going to play an important part for the movie, they are already gone again. The story isn't always told from the right perspective which makes this movie at times a bit incoherent to watch. This is also due to the fact that at times the movie is set in 'present time' (1999), while the rest of the movie is set in the '70's. Those sort of scene's make it pretty obvious that this movie is based on a book. I'm sure all those element worked just fine in the book but for a movie it is pointless and adds no extra value to the story. A lot of things still remain unclear after the movie has ended, which makes this movie as a whole an unsatisfying one to watch.

I also never really got into the characters. I never quite knew what went on in those girls heads and I never felt their desperateness and their cry for help. The portrayal of their parents (James Woods and Kathleen Turner) was also a opportunity wasted. Instead as strict and tough parents they are portrayed as simply narrow minded people, who have their own ideas about what's good and wrong for their children. If they had portrayed the parents as two completely strict and tough persons, the movie would had become more, claustrophobic, sensible, emotional and more understandable.

The cast is good and has cameos in it from Danny DeVito and Scott Glenn and roles from Josh Hartnett and Hayden Christensen before they received real fame as actors. The movie however isn't really a character movie. The main essence of the movie is put on the style and look of it. For that reason the movie also perhaps feels a bit as a waste of a great cast.

The movie is good looking and well directed by Sofia Coppola but it seemed that they forget about the story at times. It makes "The Virgin Suicides" a bit of an incoherent movie to watch at times. Because of the lacking storytelling the movie never truly becomes emotional or truly understandable and therefor it's nothing more than a just average drama that is good looking but nothing more than that.

6/10

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When I first saw The Virgin Suicides during its original release, I thought it was a good looking film but suffered from the 'style over substance' syndrome. Having revisited recently I have changed my mind.

What does it all mean and how is this film to be viewed. I initially thought it was all and really only about the girls, but years later I realize it's more about the boys/now men. The whole thing is told exclusively from their perspectives. And one that is but distant memories/recollection from their youth. As such the viewer really must take these decades of distance between the events and the retelling into consideration and accept that the narration is suspect. It is suspect not only for the many years time, but it's basically teenage boys experiences with beautiful and captivating girls as the objects of those memories, told by the now adult teenage boys. The girls are so mysterious to the boys and the audience because teenage boys know nothing about teenage girls, and even though they are now adults they still don't understand them. The story is a combination of how things happened, along with how now decades later, they would have actually liked things to have played out. As such this makes a lot more sense and clarity to the story and one that I finally find to be interesting and worth checking out.

genuine film talent runs in the blood. sophia coppola's debut is so perfectly done that it'll be hard for her to top. her use of camera angles and shadowing and filters came together so well. i didn't get to see it big screen but you don't need to. it's so elegant and "large" a film.

the acting is subtle and astute. the soundtrack lends to the film better than most films i've seen come out of new hollywood.

the only continuity flaw i saw was the elm tree being in the front yard towards the end after it was so cerimoniously cut down. being the psychological focal point of the film, they should have been more vigilant chequing the dailies...

virgin suicides and american beauty both show profound promise for new hollywood. see them both...