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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 30.41%
Worth A Look: 35.81%
Average: 14.19%
Pretty Bad: 9.46%
Total Crap: 10.14%
12 reviews, 76 user ratings
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| Virgin Suicides, The |
by iF Magazine
"One of the best films of the year."
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Pitch black humor, remorse and innuendo waft over the new drama THE VIRGIN SUICIDES like a warm summer’s breeze. A story of teen lust, longing and ultimately desperation, this adaptation of the cult hit novel of the mid ‘90s marks the startling directorial debut of Sofia Coppola. Yeah, that Coppola. As in daughter of Francis. As in the one blamed for ruining GODFATHER III. As in the one who has since retreated to magazine writing, fashion design and general hob knobbing. So who would have thought this would be the most daring, the most confident, the most audacious debut since, well Spike Jonze’s BEING JOHN MALKOVICH?That fact that Coppola is married to Jonze and they were both shooting their maiden cinematic voyages simultaneously truly boggles the mind. But we’ve talked plenty about Spike, now it’s Sofia’s turn to shine.
VIRGIN SUICIDES takes place in the ‘70s and concerns the Lisbon sisters, five very attractive and very confused teenagers who grow up in a very wealthy and conservative suburb of Detroit. (Gross Pointe to be exact.) As oppressed by a domineering mother (a shockingly dowdy Kathleen Turner) and a comically ineffectual father (James Woods in a terrific departure from his usual bombastic self), the girls long to be like other kids, but find ultimately only desperation.
Kirsten Dunst leads the pack as Lux, the oldest and seemingly strongest sister, who presides over four equally blonde and desifferous siblings played by several fresh faced newcomers that include A.J. Cook and Hanna Hall. At the center of the several stories is a classic romance that recalls everything cinematic from CARRIE to the latest dippy Freddie Prinz Jr. vehicle.
And this is where Coppola bravely mixes and messes with the milieu.
Lux is hot for Trip Fontaine, the school’s coolest dude (played almost to the hilt by Josh Hartnett) while her mother is determined to make sure all her girls graduate with hymens intact. Of course the girls disobey their mother but after the familiar set ups, things get strange in mysterious ways that would be criminal to give away here.
The film is told in a mock flashback with the boys next door, who longed for the unobtainable sisters, retelling the tale that starts down the usual high school corridors (jocks, dances, underage drinking) and then suddenly veers off into darker corners that can only be described as something out of a dream state.
It’s a perfectly controlled and modulated, haunting art film (with her lineage could Coppola really have made anything else?). By turns funny, sad and shocking SUICIDE features images that will slowly creep into your subconscious. A girl’s tale told by boys SUICIDE is informed by a deadpan narrator (Giovanni Ribisi) who describes first meeting Lux as “she came closer, and we saw the light in her eyes we’ve been looking for ever since.”
Coppola, who adapted the screenplay from the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, seems to well remember the awkward time of adolescence (she’s 27 now) and gets all the details just right. By mixing soft focused pastels and soft spoken dialogue with clingingly corny ‘70s power ballads, she lovingly recreates a moment in time and memory that will either have viewers swooning in ecstasy or gagging.When the film played at Sundance in January the advance word was great and many cynical festival goers took the occasion to sharpen their knifes and attack the film as pretentious, vacuous claptrap. Hopefully a more unbiased audience will see it for what it is: one of the best films of the year. ---Paul Zimmerman (iF Magazine (http://ifmagazine.ifctv.com)
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=3859&reviewer=119
originally posted: 05/14/00 02:05:44
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USA
21-Apr-2000 (R)
UK
N/A (15)
Australia
10-Aug-2000 (MA)
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