Cheap The Virgin Suicides (DVD) (Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett) (Sofia Coppola) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Virgin Suicides

Sofia Coppola's directorial debut shows great promise for the daughter of the great director with the same last name. She weaves her story splendidly around five religiously repressed teenage girls and the boys who were driven crazy by their beauty. Useing music and minor camera tricks to convey the intense emotion behind the turbulent teenage years, she shows how five girls' suicides forever changed the world of these boys. And Coppola knows how to direct her actors as well. The excellent ensemble cast, including James Woods, Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnet, all give solid performances. Kathleen Turner especially shines as the girls' overly religious mother who forbids any potentially sinful social situations.

Towards the end of the film, there is one particularly magical scene after the girls are no longer allowed to leave the home, and they reach out from their prison to the boys next door by calling them up and playing music over the phone. In a fantastic montage, we watch as they perform this emotional support back and forth. No words, just music to express their feelings. It's one of those scenes that sticks with you long after you've seen the film.

The Virgin Suicides is a film I can't recommend highly enough. It's only made on a small scale, but it's lessons are those of a lifetime.

Haunting film, though not without its flaws
Still an impressive directorial debut for Sofia Coppola (and adapted from the Jeffrey Eugenides book that I admittedly haven't read), I was somewhat disappointed by the often disjointed style of this movie. At times, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES had the feel of a Paul Thomas Anderson film with the occasional lazy edits and contrived dialogue; also a dash of David Lynch. I was also disappointed by the performances of James Woods and Kathleen Turner as the parents -- clearly these were disturbed parents, but their portrayals were shockingly remote and one dimensional. Come to think of it, much of the acting in this film felt dreamlike and a bit too flat -- partly intentional I'm sure ... but just how much? The first 2/3 of the movie satisfyingly built up the haunting mystique that I was expecting largely due to Kirsten Dunst's portrayal of the ravishingly enigmatic Lux Lisbon, but everything seemed to unravel after the high school dance sequence. I won't reveal any details, but suffice to say that it felt like a clumsy attempt to be overly "artsy". I think Sofia Coppola has serious potential however, and I think she can build on this experience.

I've never been a 13 year-old girl
In spite of my lack of qualifications--I'm a male and was 13 when Eisenhower lived in the White House--I would like to make a few comments about this movie. As I write this, more than 200 people have given plot summaries so I won't add one more.
I think the move is quite awful. If the movie was supposed to be about the feelings of the narrator then I might consider giving the movie an extra "star." Or if the movie was supposed to remind us that "normal" teens commit suicide, that might give it two stars, also.
But a movie should, in my opinion, be more than, say, a newspaper story that tell of a suicide of a teen with the always-asked question: WHY? A movie can get into the thoughts and feelings of the people, give insight into their anger or despair, and still show how parents or friends can be both clueless and a contributor to their problem.
But, except for the pitifully lame statement, "You don't know what it is like to be a 13-year-old girl," this movie does none of that.
Other movies, "Dead Poet's Society" and "Ordinary People", and probably others, have done a credible job with this topic. But this movie falls completely flat in my opinion.
In fact, the plot is so weak that a case could be made that the "suicides" were, in fact, murder. (...)