Customer Reviews

The Virgin Suicides (Widescreen)

5 star:		(99)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

Having read Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides, easily one of the most remarkable, haunting novels ever written, I would have said it was impossible to adapt the story to film - and, to some degree, I would have been right. Still, this film adaptation does as fine as job as is humanly possible to bring the ethereal Lisbon girls and the boys obsessed with them and their tragedy to life. It's an excellent, convoluted movie that defies convention and embraces the mystery of the tragedy, but believe me when I say that anyone remotely interested in this movie simply must read the original novel. This movie offers just the first taste of a surreal and tragic story that haunts the reader as much as the suicides haunt the lives of the boys still trying to understand the mystery of the Lisbon girls they adored in ways they could never have put into words. The true magic of the story isn't the sequence of tragic events that unfold; it's the indescribable, impenetrable, unseen world the girls lived in.

The novel tells the story from the outside looking in, through the eyes of the neighborhood boys who obsessed over the Lisbon girls, dreamed about them, and sought some form of access to their haunting inner world. The girls themselves were ethereal creatures spotted only sporadically, surreal ghosts of the lively, vibrant girls they should have been. A movie could never recreate such an abstract viewpoint - the only possible way to do it is to take us into the Lisbon house from the very start. We see what takes places within those walls, watch the interactions of the girls with their parents and one another, and that obviously takes away from some of the mystery inherent in the novel. Even still, we don't get to know the girls as well as we do in the novel. Only two stand out - Constance and Lux, while the other three are simply there, impossible to call by name or recognize by individual nature. That's the main weakness of this otherwise fine adaptation. There's a rushed sort of feeling to the story, and we really needed more time to know and understand Bonnie, Mary, and Therese.

Kirsten Dunst was a perfect choice to play the sensual free spirit that is Lux, while Hanna R. Hall is wonderful as the enigmatic Cecilia, the real lynchpin for the entire story. The film, quickly launching into the traumatic events of the story, doesn't really give us enough time to really see who Cecilia is, and that robs it of some of its heart-touching power, I'm afraid. James Woods plays the subdued role of Mr. Lisbon brilliantly, but Kathleen Turner just never really seemed to capture Mrs. Lisbon successfully enough for me. Then there's Josh Hartnett - not my favorite actor - in full 70s regalia. His character is an important link to Lux, but I think he gets too much time in the movie, to the point that it takes away from the true vision of the other boys' obsession with the girls. The conclusion, on the other hand, feels much too rushed. It's a dark and shocking scene that almost seems to happen in slow motion in the novel, but in the film it all happens so fast that you don't really have sufficient time to digest it. None of these things are a problem for those familiar with Eugenides' novel, but viewers who haven't read the book just won't get the full effect of the tragedy, I'm afraid.

this is about the only film i have seen that has been made after the book, that was any good. sofia coppola did and excellent job of showing how tough the lisbon girls life was. she may have even bettered jeffrey eugenides book. this was a brilliant film, and kirsten dunst made a good lux.
there were a few slight changes from the book (in the book mary does not die when she puts her head in the oven, she survives for a few weeks afterward) but they did not make the film worse.
the story is very believeable and the actors all fit their characters extremely well. in england this film is classified 15, which i think is entirely suitable.
i can't wait until sofias latest film "lost in translation" comes out on video and dvd in the uk, as i am sure it will be as good.

The Virgin Suicides was recommended to me by someone who by all means should be dead right now. I don't understand how all these arty film school rejects can praise this movie so much. The only arty thing this "film" achieves is an entire new level of monotony. Even the music is boring in this movie. You'd have to shoot me with elephant tranq to get me to watch it for a second time.

This cinematic disaster zone may well be the product of the overzealous trashing instinct of movie critics. When Sophia Coppola played in THE GODFATHER PART III, critics just couldn't say enough to utterly dub her the dud of an otherwise outstanding cast. Actually I never saw her as particularly out of her league among that cast; she seemed to hold her own in an ensemble quite adequate if not necessarily outstanding. If only she could have gone on acting, we all might be better off today, whether her acting ended up Oscar quality or strictly B-movie. But possibly the critics' trashing pushed her career in other directions, and she ended up doing something truly awful -- she wrote the screenplay for this atrocity, the VIRGIN SUICIDES. It has a story unbelievable and ultimately unexplained. It is thus gratuitously and senselessly downbeat for a story really serving no purpose. It wastes acting talent without creating any really interesting characters. The five sisters in it esentially live just to die senselessly and meaninglessly. The audience can find their deaths sad but otherwise has no reason feel they met characters of any interest. And so here we have ground zero of the career of budding angel Kirsten Dunst. Before this she was the bright shining cameo in WAG THE DOG, was superb in DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, and didn't exactly languish in dullness in DICK. But since this present train wreck of a movie, she doesn't seem to rise above the lame megafluff level of BRING IT ON, GET OVER IT, and CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL. We might have had the chance to see both her and Sophia Coppola as actresses not to be sneezed at. As is, no use "waiting with bated breath" for one out of two.

A lot viewer's know that Sofia Coppola is not much of a great actress, but she seems to have inherited some of her father's talents in this film. Coppola knows how to get the best from her actors and a few "coming of age" films have the sensual, dream-like quality as this 1974 look at upper middle class American suburbia.

Written and directed by her, this mesmerizing account of adolescent sexual socialization (set in the posh suburbs of 1974 Detroit) has a bittersweet quality, yet is tragic as well. A group of young teenage boys come into contact with five bewitchingly beautiful teenage sisters in their affluent neighborhood. Each savor the short time they have with these girls, who are extremely overprotected by their devout Catholic parents (Woods and Turner).

Humorous, sensual, and highly evocative of "boy-meets-girl awkwardness" as seen through the boys' eyes, this film is a tribute to an American way of life not unlike "American Beauty". However, the dreaminess comes to an abrupt end... an "awakening", if you will... by the boys as they come to grips with a tragedy they are barely able to comprehend Sofia Coppola is an immensely talented filmmaker. She recreates the 70's era effortlessly, and allows the characters to all be real people instead of mere thumbnail sketches.

While this movie might lack a standard plot structure it succeeds dramatically in capturing the mood and feel of a certain generation. Obviously this movie will speak loudest to those who experience adolescence in the seventies but it also communicates strongly to all people recollecting that period of their lives. The great tragedy imparted in this movie is that of young beauty extinguished and the fruitless search to discover how this crime against nature could have occurred.

The cinematography is beautiful, never distracting but always full of genuinely real images, which served to offset the hallucination tone of the movie. There is a relaxed pace to the film, and I was drawn into the hazy, misty memories that make up the bulk of the story.

The virgin suicides truly is an amazing movie with a perfect soundtrack. The viewer really does fall in love with the lisbon girls. This is a great film that has become a timeless classic that will spark conversations with fellow viewers about all the issues raised in the film.

Peace out and happy movie watching.

Sofia Coppola brings the book magically to life in a thoroughly engaging movie. Coppola not only connects with the tragic Lisbon girls but with the 70's as well, giving the movie a sumptuous feel like the songs of "Heart," whose "Magic Man" provides the perfect intro for Trip Fontaine. Even the cinematography recalls that time. To her credit, she doesn't try to unravel the mystery that surrounds these girls' suicides, leaving the viewer to sort out the details as the four teenage boys try to do so.

I couldn't help but think that Eugenides and Coppola both drew from "Picnic at Hanging Rock." The book had an odd Victorian feel to it, given its setting in the 70's, and Coppola seemed to take the same loving approach to her characters. I thought she handled the cloistered lives of the Lisbon girls very well. James Woods and Kathleen Turner are almost unrecognizable as their parents, whose fundamental views are sharply at odds with the free-spirited time, which the girls so much want to take part in. Coppola treated the eventful Homecoming dance very well and the tragic events which follow. I especially liked the way she handled Trip, dramatically presenting him but not fawning over him as Eugenides did in the novel.

This was a very impressive debut for Sofia Coppola and she followed it up well in "Lost in Translation." She has a remarkable sense of her characters and setting, due to an especially fine eye for detail.

I think that the movie could have had a future with the story, but it was to wide. All that happens in it that is a little bit interesting is the suicides but even that the audience never knows how and why. It's not a great movie, I had higher expectations of it.

In this movie you see the lives of a family and friends go down the drain day by day. The Lisbon sisters/family seem to have it all until one of the sisters commits suicide. Their parents become tollerably strict until Lux (Dunst) ruins that for herself and her sisters. They are soon taken out of school, not able to communicate with the opposite sex, and soon take a wrong turn which turns fatal. Told in the words of the neighborhood boys who worshiped them and who come together 20 years later to try and solve the mystery of the Lisbon sisters. It is a solitary story of the girls' isolation and the sleepy portrayal of how they watched powerless as their fragile lives disappeared.

Subtle and powerful, the Virgin Suicides is like a visual poem of wishes and dreams colliding violently with a harsh reality. This is a quiet masterpiece and the auteur director writer has impressed me with her talent. The visuals and the music are inspired.
I was very moved by the plight of the sisters whose mother is malevolently selfish, and the plight of the neighborhood boys that love the sisters.