Review of The Virgin Suicides (2000) by Nick O — 06 Oct 2013

Sofia Coppola made her pretty masterpiece with 2003's "Lost in Translation"; before that, in 1999, there was "The Virgin Suicides", based on a wistful novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Yet Coppola, for all of her lush imagery and quiet camera work, to me, has but only in brief reputation opened her heart in such a way as with "Virgin Suicides", relaxing the sensibilities of a director like Cameron Crowe.

Following four sisters by the names of Lisbon in 1970s suburban Michigan after the suicide of their youngest, Coppola stretches the landscape in such a careful way it wouldn't matter what the characters are saying or doing: it's just the being there that gets caught in your throat. And "The Virgin Suicides" is something that will stay with me for a long, long time. It makes you melt on every kindred level, and if you took Giovanni Ribisi's narration away the film would feel even emptier. "The Virgin Suicides" gets more lax and loving with every lick and shine by admiring both the Lisbon girls in huge anticipation of America in the 1970s as damaged renegades with the same broken dream.