My wife watched The Virgin Suicides the other day and wanted me to watch it. It is currently available On-Demand from Xfinity with one of the movie channels. So, we watched it and I also enjoyed the film. There are some terrific performances and it is a tragic story. I give The Virgin Suicides the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
The Virgin Suicides is an intriguing film with a tragic end.
Four boys become obsessed with the lives of the five Lisbon sisters that live across the street from them. The girl’s live under strict rules by their devout Catholic parents seek to protect them from the evils of the world. The boys watch from across the street and one of them tries to recap their story from what they learned.
The film begins with tragedy. The youngest sister, Cecilia (Hanna Hall), has attempted to kill herself. While she was unsuccessful, the family is clearly sent spiraling. It’s not too long into the movie that Cecilia tries again and is successful. Kathleen Turner and James Woods play the parents of the five girls. Turner plays her role perfectly and makes it hard to like her at all. She seems clueless on how to react to the death of her daughter. The whole family suffers as Woods defers to his wife for all important decisions.
Best performance from Kirsten Dunst
This is probably Kirsten Dunst’s best performance. She plays Lux who is the most rebellious of the sisters. Their lives are kept extremely limited by their parents beliefs. The repression of the girl’s blossoming sexuality is clearly backfiring. Yet, every time the girls start to try and break away Turner tightens her grip. The story, however, is told from the perspective of the boys across the street. They loved the girls and built their story together through their observations. Giovanni Ribisi is the narrator and an adult version of one of the boys. Thus, we aren’t always sure how true the details are as they are told from a third party.
Sofia Coppola plays on religious themes and uses some great visuals to help tell the story. The family is in a suburban home where all the houses look the same. As the Lisbon family gets worse so does their house. The tree in the yard gets sick and chopped down. There is visible issues inside the house as well. It’s great visual storytelling and it only adds to the film as a whole. It is definitely one that is worth a watch.
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