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The Virgin Suicides


by Edward Lachman, Air
Starring Danny DeVito, Kirsten Dunst, Scott Glenn, Michael Paré, Jonathan Tucker
Paramount

List Price: $9.98
Price: $6.99
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Sales Rank: 3273
Release Date: December 19, 2000
Rated:  
Running Time: 96 minutes
Theatrical Release: August 21, 2008
Studio: Paramount


FORMATS

  • Closed-captioned
  • Color
  • Dolby
  • DVD-Video
  • Widescreen
  • NTSC


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

Product Description
In a quiet Michigan community in the mid-1970s, neighborhood boys try to piece together the lives of the five Lisbon sisters, kept isolated by their over-protective parents.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 9-AUG-2005
Media Type: DVD

Amazon.com
Previously criticized for her marginal acting skills, Sofia Coppola made her directorial debut with The Virgin Suicides and silenced her detractors. No amount of coaching from her director father (Francis Coppola) or husband (Spike Jonze) could have guaranteed a film this assured, and in adapting Jeffrey Eugenides's novel, Coppola demonstrates the sensitivity and emotional depth that this material demands. Surely the pain of youth and public criticism found its way into her directorial voice; in the story of four sisters who self-destruct under the steady erosion of their youthful ideals, one can clearly sense Coppola's intimate connection to the inner lives of her characters.

Played in a delicate minor key, the film is heartbreaking, mysterious, and soulfully funny, set in a Michigan suburb of the mid-1970s but timeless and universal to anyone who's been a teenager. The four surviving Lisbon sisters lost a sibling to suicide, and as its title suggests, the film will chart their mutual course to oblivion under the vigilance of repressive parents (Kathleen Turner and James Woods, perfectly cast). But The Virgin Suicides is more concerned with life in that precious interlude of adolescence, when the Lisbon girls are worshipped by the neighborhood boys, their notion of perfection epitomized by Lux (Kirsten Dunst) and her storybook love for high-school stud Trip (Josh Hartnett). Unfolding at the cusp of innocence and sexual awakening, and recalled as a memory, The Virgin Suicides is, ultimately, about the preservation of the Lisbon sisters by their own deaths--suspended in time, polished to perfection, and forever untainted by adulthood. --Jeff Shannon



CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 290 reviews)

Haunting  
This is one of my top 5 movies. It's not a feel-good movie, but rather leaves you feeling melancholy and haunted. But I can't help wanting to watch it again and again. Sofia Coppola did an excellent job directing and Kirsten Dunst is great as Lux Lisbon.

One of the best parts of the movie is the music. There are two soundtracks; one by Air (they wrote the album for this movie) and another a collection of various songs. They go extremely well with the film and have played a huge part for me.
August 04, 2008

Very Melancholy Feeling. . .  
I can't believe this didn't get 5 stars from everyone - maybe it's because of the subject matter. It's an excellent film - you won't leave feeling good, but it defines the tragedy of suicide and the remnants of those left behind VERY well. It won't necessarily make you cry, but it will hold you, and you'll probably watch it again. I've seen it over and over - it's one of those movies that's interesting no matter how many times you watch it. I haven't met anyone yet who didn't like it.
June 28, 2008

THIS MOVIE REQUIRES ONE TO HAVE A DEEP MIND! THIS MOVIE WAS GREAT!  
A LOT OF PEOPLE TEND TO FIND IT BORING AND POINTLESS. I PERSONALLY THINK THIS MOVIE IS AN AQUIRED TASTE WHICH I HAPPEN TO POSESS. THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE MOVIE WAS THESE GIRLS KILLED THEMSELVES AS AN ESCAPE FROM THE PRISON THEY WERE IN CONTROLLED BY THIER MOTHER! SHE WAS PSYCHOTIC. I DONT KNOW WHAT THIER MOTHER WENT THRU OR WAS GOING THRU BUT SHE WAS HORRIBLY CLINGY TO HER DAUGHTERS. ITS LIKE SHE WAS AFRAID OF LETTING THEM GO. THEY COULDNT DO ANYTHING, THEY WERE TRAPPED IN THE HOUSE AND DEPRIVED OF HAVING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF HOME. THERE WAS NO NEED TO ADD MORE TO THE MOVIE SO THAT U CAN UNDERSTAND IT WAS A REAL DEPICTION AND IT MADE ITS POINT HINCE THE NAME THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. BASICALLY NOTHING NEEDED TO BE ADDED ...THE POINT WAS THEY HAD A OUTRAGOUS MOTHER WHO ONLY THOUGHT OF HERSELF WITH NO CONSIDERATION...NOT A OUNCE OF IT FOR HER DAUGHTERS...
SHE KEPT THEM CRAMPED INSIDE THE HOUSE ALLOWING THEM TO HAVE NO FREEDOM WHATSOEVER...THEY FELT THAT IN A SENSE THAT THEY MAY AS WELL BE DEAD...THATS WHY THEY KIILED THEMSELVES... I LOVE THIS MOVIE
April 28, 2008

Tedious and pointless.  
Having seen "Marie Antoinette" and the first half of "Lost In Translation" (I wasn't able to get through the entire thing), I admit I am no fan of Sofia Coppola. I believe she is an over-rated director whose films are looked upon as deep and meaningful, while they are in fact quite shallow and pointless. Such was the case with "The Virgin Suicides".
The film revolves around four (or was it five?) good-looking sisters, who live in a very religious household and see suicide as their only escape from the shelter they've been put into. The story is told through the eyes of the neighborhood boys, who lust after these girls, but feel as if they don't know anything about these mysterious creatures.
The problem is, neither do we. The fact that I can't even remember how many of the sisters there were tells something - except for Lux, played by Kirsten Dunst, these girls are just there to fill the frame, and they have no characteristics or background stories. The first half hour of the film starts promising, with the death of the youngest sister, but after that, there is another hour or so of nothing. There is this guy, played by Josh Hartnett, who is in love with Lux, and then the movie is filled with tedious scenes that seem to go on forever... It is clear from the start that these girls are depressed because of the repressing environment they are growing up in, but the movie doesn't go anywhere from there.
I honestly do not understand why anyone would like this movie. What offended me the most was how pretentious it was. The only good thing about this film is Kirsten Dunst, who is gorgeous and exploited to the maximum - there are countless scenes of her in slow motion, waving, shaking her hair, winking, etc. It is a pleasure to see just how much the camera love sher - but you might as well just look at the DVD cover for hours and feel the same thing. You won't miss out on a good story, I promise you!
April 22, 2008

Haunting, Dreamlike, and Unforgetable  
I have loved this movie the first time I watched it. It's a movie that I can find something different to admire with each viewing. It's so tragic and it didn't happen. I had heard somewhere that this was based lossley on a true story, but I think that's a myth. The belongings left for trash at the end just breaks my heart. You understand, grieve for, and are angry for the parents. As a mother, the only way that I can see their own lives continuning is mental illness that requires them to be committed, serve alcholhics, or turing to suicide themselves.
January 23, 2008


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The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides

Lost in Translation
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