Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Sofia Coppola made her feature directing debut with this adaptation of the literary sensation of its day: Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel about five teen sisters in 70s suburban Michigan who take their own lives. Now it is rereleased with a solemn trigger-warning disclaimer at the beginning about certain historic attitudes which might now cause offence; these are unspecified, but it appears to mean the entire premise of the film, up there in the title, but which is treated more circumspectly nowadays in the context of new ideas around self-harm and “suicidal ideation”.
This was a movie which mystified as many as it entranced, and it would be honest of me to admit that I didn’t quite understand it back in 2000, and maybe don’t quite now. But I can perhaps appreciate with more clarity its artistry and poise and the confident way Coppola allows her film to be serenely mysterious and almost affectless in its sunlit suburban calm, a reticence which appears to mask the shocking nature of the story itself: a horrendous tragedy in the guise of a teenage coming-of-age movie.
The Virgin Suicides launched Coppola’s career and gave us our first look at this tonal reserve, this capacity for blankness, a subversive take on feminine mystique, and a refusal to satirise or ironise what might be seen as privileged female lives that was later shown to various effect in films including Lost in Translation, Somewhere and The Bling Ring. The Virgin Suicides also launched the adult career of Kirsten Dunst, who had made her name as a child in Interview With the Vampire. She plays the entrancing Lux, and perhaps never again had a role to match this sphinx-like character (although she gave an interestingly cool Marie Antoinette in Coppola’s notably sympathetic 2006 film). The voiceover narration is by Giovanni Ribisi, and perhaps Coppola was aiming for something like the gravelly assurance and substance of Ray Liotta’s remembering voice in Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
Ribisi’s character is one of the goofy, gawky teen boys who would hang around back in the day, hormonally obsessing about the hauntingly beautiful and sweet Lisbon sisters: Lux (Dunst), Cecilia (Hanna Hall), Therese (Leslie Hayman), Mary (AJ Cook) and Bonnie (Chelse Swain). Their parents are a maths teacher and his religious homemaker wife, played with sympathy and intelligence by James Woods and Kathleen Turner. When 13-year-old Cecilia makes what appears to be a poignant cry-for-help attempt at cutting her own wrists in the bathtub, the sternly conservative parents are persuaded by the psychiatrist supervising her recovery (a cameo from Danny DeVito) that they should allow the surviving sisters to socialise with boys more, under strict supervision of course.
The new liberalness does not prevent further disaster and Lux finds herself dating the school’s hunkiest boy, Trip Fontaine, played by Josh Hartnett, who breaks her heart by keeping her out after curfew and leaving her sleeping in the football field after the Homecoming ball – having incidentally removed that titular virginity. This calamity leads to a clampdown from the mum and dad: all four girls permanently grounded, though with Lux having sexual encounters on the roof and the girls communicating with the mooningly immature boys in various ways – and all of it leads to catastrophe.
But why? What is the cause-and-effect? Did this have to happen? Was it the result of a certain kind of psychological epidemic within people in enclosed isolation? Maybe. Or maybe this is just a kind of dysfunctional cult of young women who collectively decided, to paraphrase Keats, to cease upon the bright midday with no pain. Given that no character here seems to fully express or emote the horror and grief that they must surely be feeling, the film withholds its meaning and leaves the audience in almost the same sunlit suburban dreaminess in which it began. It looks stranger and more enigmatic than ever.
• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
• The Virgin Suicides is released on 28 July in UK and Irish cinemas, and is streaming on Stan and Apple TV in Australia.
