The Virgin Suicides Movie Review

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

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Written by: Jeffrey Eugenides (novel), Sofia Coppola (written by)
Directed by: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Jonathan Tucker, Scott Glenn, Danny DeVito
Rated: R
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Plot
A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents in suburban Detroit in the mid 1970s.

Verdict
It's haunting. We see this event from a children's perspective; their memories, their insights. This is also about the tragedy that befell the girls, and their parents who hold a lot of responsibility. The events grip their classmates who want answers, but the adults of the neighborhood try to ignore it as the root cause is overly strict parents. It's dreamlike as this skips a lot of detail, but that's attributed to this memory the kids' have as adults.
Watch It.

Review
At the center of the movie are the five Lisbon sisters. The youngest one attempts suicide to start the movie and everyone has a theory about what happened with some blaming the strict parents. The narration starts with a character looking back at this event, and it suggests this is a tragedy that remained a part of the neighborhood. How do you cope with something tragic like that? It's understandable the parents might become even more protective.

The family experiences even more tragedy, but they carry on like nothing happened. Tim (Jonathan Tucker) and the neighborhood boys are bewildered at that. This is a movie about psychology, both the Lisbon family and the neighborhood.

AJ Cook, Kirsten Dunst, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain play Mary, Lux, Therese, Bonnie

The boys of the neighborhood look for clues to answer why something like this happened. It seems like it's in part due to the girls' over protective parents. It's clear the girls haven't socialized with boys by how much Lux (Kirsten Dunst) flirts with the first one invited to her house. Interspersed with that are interviews from future Trip. He talks about how he loved Lux, but he ditched her the night of prom. That plays into how the characters view the past. It's clear future Trip is having a rough time in life. He probably views the past with a different angle, imagining how great things were then which contrasts with his now. That's a big part of this movie, how characters see these events of the past, altered by the experience of life.

Lux's prom night adventures lead to all the girls being removed from school to limit outside contact and destroying rock music records. Lux acts out in response which isn't a surprise. The neighborhood boys call the girls, but it's strange the parents let the girls use the phone with how strict they are about everything else. Eventually the girls only communication is through lights in the windows and cards they hide outside. It feels like there should be more to this. How did the kids set up these systems?

Jonathan Tucker plays Tim Weiner

The boys hatch a plan to save the girls and drive them to safety. It's a reasonable childhood thought, but reality is in stark contrast. It's a tough ending, and this whole movie feels dreamlike. It's like it's being told as a memory. That helps explain the gaps in plot details. This is a fascination shaped by the narrator. The adults move on and the kids are left to wonder. They never get an answer, so they never stop wondering. They talk about how they loved the girls, but they didn't. They were fascinated, maybe even obsessed. It wasn't love. Their memories in hindsight feel like that, or they want them to feel like that. Love would explain their fascination.

The final scene seems like a comment on the movie. It's a school age dance, a remembrance that is visually foggy and obscured. That seems like an apt commentary, as there's so much we don't see. This movie is told through a narrator's perspective after the fact. Memories can fade and change.