I am afraid that in Sofia Coppola's first statement as a filmmaker, she hasn't really stated anything at all. Her debut, The Virgin Suicides, was based on a scabarously funny and detached look at angsty - and satirically enough, suicidal - teen life written into book form by Jeffrey Eugenides in 1993. She has retained his plot (thought it doesn't work so well on the big screen) and some of his edge (which explodes with laceration and laughs). What she has added to her strangely static literary touch are a few stylistic tweaks that never seem to cohese. Add to that the fact that, with painful deliberateness, almost none of the characters are ever given life and what you result in is a steaming pile of potential steeped in growing pains; a mis-step if ever there was one but still an oddly fascinating viewing experience.
Opening with shots of middle America, in all of its cinematic stage-y glory, the film seems lost, wandering, and that feeling doesn't ever truly fade. Even once the plot sets up - the five lisbon daughters are drawn one by one into the shadowy afterlife to escape their lifeless pods of existence ruled by their parents Mr. & Mrs. Lisbon (James Woods & Kathleen Turner) - the drama remains almost irritatingly inert. What hooks you from the beginning is the clever conceit that indeed all of these young girls will commit suicide before the lights go up. It's a good thing too that there is something to hook you from the start, as it would be a shame to eventually miss the pleasure of a realizing a true talent at work...even if that work be of flawed and failing nature.
As things start to fall into place (the first sister offs herself, romantic blossoms are given their first rays of light, etc) the picture as a whole manages at least to absorb, if not become wholly a part of, several different themes. You have the probing expose of hypocriticial suburbanites, an idea that works particularly well as a tentpole explanation for the girls' deaths. You have the melodramatic tragedy of young love squashed irrevocably; which, as a result, cause other tragic irrevocable things to happen as well. And last there exists the subtle notion that none of this really matters; that in the story of mass suicide there is niether heartbreak nor enlightenment...there is simply nothing.
As an artist, writer-director Coppola adapts well to all of these three themes but sticks maddeningly close to that last; explaining as her reason for doing so with contrived voice-overs that (against my better sense) I have to admit still carry a requisite somber energy. Kirsten Dunst, in the pivotal role of Lux Lisbon, showed a shocking early penchant for ability in her role and a fair amount of daring - since she is the only true character in this top-heavy tale. Mostly the other "characters" stand around reciting their lines but committing precious little energy. This prompts one to ask just how much energy did Coppola herself devote to breathing fresh personality into these book-bound creations?
True the film may be tragic on paper only; true also that in the sealed-up world of Michigan, 1975 in which the characters all live there exists very small increments of drama in which to care about. But guided as it were by numerous sleights-of-hand by the director herself and powered occasionally by jagged bolts of venomous verve, this dreamy and great-sounding film is by no means bad. The Virgin Suicides may only aspire to be great (if that), but what aspirations.
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