- Title: The Virgin Suicides
- IMDb: link
“Everyone dates the demise of our neighborhood from the suicides of the Lisbon girls. People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped out elms, the harsh sunlight, and the continuing decline of our auto industry. Even as teenagers we tried to put the pieces together; we still can’t. Now, whenever we run into each other at business lunches or cocktail parties, we find ourselves in the corner going over the evidence one more time. All to understand those five girls who, after all these years, we can’t get out of our minds.”
The Lisbon girls were beautiful. The five daughters of Mrs. Lisbon (Kathleen Turner) and Mr. Lisbon (James Woods), a high school teacher, captured the minds and hearts of the neighborhood boys in the early 1970’s in the sleepy Michigan suburbs.
The girls, Therese (Leslie Hayman) 17 years-old, Mary (A.J. Cook) 16, Bonnie (Chelse Swain) 15, Lux (Kirsten Dunst) 14, and Cecila (Hanna Hall) 13, would all be gone in the course of a single year.
In the space of two summers the sleepy suburbs would be woken to the deaths of five beautiful young women, all at their own hands. The haunting suicides would leave behind unfinished dreams and imaginations by the boys they left behind (Anthony DeSimone, Lee Kagan, Robert Schwartzman, Noah Shebib, and Jonathan Tucker).
What caused such events to occur? The sheltered life of the girls didn’t help matters, nor the strict homelife. Was that all? And if so, was there nothing that could be done? The film’s characters look back with a tearful eye in wonder.
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For a historical perspective almost every choice is head-scratching. Kirsten Dunst in the lead role? A supporting cast featuring the likes of Rip Torn, Molly Shannon, and modern pop music? Many thought Marie Antoinette was going to be a disaster. Well, let me tell you a little secret for those of you thinking Sofia Coppola was ready to stumble with her third film. Not only does Marie Antoinette not fail, but Coppola produces one of the most original films of the year, in fact of our time. Is it a traditional historical perspective? No, it’s something much more interesting, that defies all expectations, and leaves us wondering if Kirsten Dunst might actually have given the best performance in films this year.