The Virgin Suicides (1999)
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The Virgin Suicides Movie Review
The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 psychological drama film directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Kathleen Turner and Kirsten Dunst among others. It is a very strange movie.
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“What we have here is a dreamer.
Someone completely out of touch with reality“
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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. Eventually, all five girls kill themselves, ending this increasingly odd film that never quite affected me emotionally. It is one of those movies that make you think that this crazy plot must have been based on a real life story, but when you realize that’s not the case, the movie loses its lasting effect.
I could definitely understand the point of this story, which is the importance of realizing the dangers of restraining teenagers from having sex. The film gets what it feels like to be young and this turmoil of teenage years is continuously well emphasized here. However, my issue lies with the tone of the movie, which was the biggest offender in making it not as powerful emotionally as it could have been.
It is a very morbid, serious story, but it was contrasted needlessly by this overly lightweight, somewhat joyous tone at times. The dreamlike state of some parts was interesting, but it also led to a slower pace and a messy structure to the film. For all the good elements that Coppola included here, there are a lot that simply were a misfire in my eyes, which all led to a somewhat muddled, though certainly ambitious directorial debut for her.
Another issue is the male gaze of the movie. I usually do not complain about this, but here in this instance it felt inappropriate because the story should very clearly be female-oriented and the director is a woman herself, but for some unbeknownst reason to me she decided to focus so heavily on the boys instead of the girls.
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I do get that this led to this very interesting dreamlike nature to The Virgin Suicides as the movie is surely very mysterious and even poetic in its third act in particular. But this approach constrained the characterization, resulting in a lot of good acting performances and not a lot of really memorable personalities themselves. The movie is well made and very well scored, but it should have been more engaging and more moving.
