The Virgin Suicides **1/2
Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre) Released in the UK by Pathé on May 19, 2000; certificate 15; 97 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Sofia Coppola; produced by Francis Ford Coppola, Julie Costanzo, Chris Hanley, Dan Halsted. Written by Sofia Coppola; based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Photographed by Edward Lachman; edited by James Lyons, Melissa Kent.
CAST..... James Woods..... Ronald A. Lisbon Kathleen Turner..... Mrs. Lisbon Kirsten Dunst..... Lux Lisbon Josh Hartnett..... Trip Fontaine A.J. Cook..... Mary Lisbon Hanna Hall..... Cecilia Lisbon Leslie Hayman..... Therese Lisbon Chelse Swain..... Bonnie Lisbon Anthony DeSimmone..... Chase Buell Lee Kagan..... David Barker Robert Schwartzman..... Paul Baldino Noah Shebib..... Parkie Denton
As I walked out of "The Virgin Suicides", confused, and depressed about my confusion, a fellow member of the audience, whose girlfriend had walked ahead to the bathroom, struck up a conversation with me. "A bit strange, that, wasn't it?" he began. "I didn't get it," I replied. "Don't think it went down well. Not sure what it was about." "No, me neither. I've read the book..." "Was that a lot different?" "Not exactly, but... it was more metaphorical... this, I just didn't get it."
And I really didn't. I was glad to see that my view was shared; I'd considered that maybe my knowledge of the source material was distracting me, but perhaps that wasn't the problem at all. "The Virgin Suicides" is haunting in its performances, and engaging in its parts, but is also unbelievably bewildering, and not in the way it intends to be.
The setting is suburban America, 1975. Cecilia Lisbon (Hanna Hall), a 13-year old daughter of a boring maths teacher (James Woods) and a strict homemaker (Kathleen Turner), kills herself by jumping from her bedroom window. There are four other siblings in the household: 14-year old Lux (Kirsten Dunst), 15-year old Bonnie (Chelse Swain), 16-year old Mary (A.J. Cook) and 17-year old Therese (Leslie Hayman).
The neighbourhood lads are fascinated by these beautiful creatures, and a grown-up version of one of them narrates the movie, which depicts the year following Cecilia's death. The boys try to gauge the girls' emotions, mix with them, judge what's going on in their household. And when the event suggested by the title happens, it is they who discover the corpses.
As a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, "The Virgin Suicides" was about men who had not been able to come to terms with growing up. The Lisbon sisters were simply emblems of an adolescent male illusion of perfection, and in wondering why they had ended their lives, the flustered, elegiac narrator was really trying to figure out what happened to childhood innocence.
At times, Sofia Coppola's film adaptation seems to be trying to recapture that sense of confusion, mystery and loss. The voice-over narration, beautifully delivered by Giovanni Ribisi, speaks of "having pieces of the puzzle, but not being able to put them together" and "arguing about it still". But the movie contradicts this by unfolding like a straight drama, and seeing the girls too clearly as real people. It spends more time in the Lisbon household than it does with the boys, even though it wants to keep the Lisbon girls a mystery, and see things from the boys' point of view.
I can't quite give the movie a negative review, because I do concur with the critical consensus that Coppola has made an impressive directorial debut. Her most famous previous work was as an actress in "The Godfather, Part III", where she wasn't terribly good. "The Virgin Suicides" reveals her control over other performers, and strong ability to evoke a sense of time and place. I just don't think it works as an enigmatic mood piece. It wants to wonder about events, and yet show them onscreen as well. What's going on?
COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani Please visit, and encourage others to visit, the UK Critic's website at http://members.aol.com/ukcritic
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