Ever wonder how to NOT raise children? Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides boldly asks and answers this question, providing a felicitous commentary on the independence of kids and teens. The two main groups of characters are used as case studies: Firstly there are the neighbor boys, the point of view we as an audience have been thrust into. Secondly there are the mysterious yet charming Lisbon girls, their cross-street neighbors. The premise is fairly simple: The neighbor boy’s parents clearly don’t give them enough attention, leading them to fill their hours spying on and obsessing over the Lisbon girls. They come up with ideas about them, stalking their mail, belongings and windows to the point that they have formed imaginary relationships with the unsuspecting Lisbons. The neglect towards the boys from their parents leads them into a dark spiral of obsession and fantasy.
In contrast, the Lisbon girls’ parents give them far too much attention. They are wardens. It’s worth noting the interesting gender swap of the typical obsessed-with-making-their-kids-miserable parent as seen in Dead Poet’s Society or Ten Things I Hate About You. The historical role of the father obsessed with his daughter’s virginity is instead passed onto the militant mother, having the real father take on the role of a passive, incompetent accomplice. In contrast to the neighbor boys’ slacker parents, the Lisbons’ tight ship doesn’t seem to control its passengers any better, the girls’ rebelling fueled by spite and desperation.
After Cecelia (Hanna R. Hall)’s counseling session, Dr. Horniker (Danny DeVito) tells the Lisbon parents that their daughter should be allowed more social freedom–especially towards boys. Mother isn’t a fan, but her daughter’s life is on the line so she tries and fails. She organizes a party in the basement– A structured, isolated environment. She invites only the boys who she deems acceptable. Cecilia has no choice who to invite, no option to truly explore and socialize on her own. At her party she is ignored because nobody wants to deal with the toll of hanging out with the suicidal child. Throughout this party she is completely isolated and has no autonomy whatsoever, just as the girls do later in relation to their rights being taken away by dear Mama.
Lack of autonomy is a key theme which recurs frequently throughout the film, demonstrated devastatingly in the mistreatment and misfortunes of Lux (Kirsten Dunst) and her sisters. Coppola does an admirable job in portraying shame and making it sting.
To counter their daughter’s disobedience, Mrs. Lisbon (Kathleen Turner) completely socially isolated her daughters, practically wrapping the house in bubble wrap and tucking them away. In this isolation we begin to see the Lisbon girls completely stripped of all that define them. After all, they were already barely indistinguishable: Four blondes that dress the same and always stay together. Now, they really are stuck together on the Lisbon property, with little possibility of friendly socializing aside from Lux’s rooftop escapades. By the last quarter of the movie, it’s as if the girls have all melded into one being with one brain. They do not need to speak to each other. Cecelia’s fate was the first crack in the dam, leading to the flood of a final act all done in perfect synchronicity, in silence, as if planned from the very beginning.
It was hard to tell, at first, if I “liked” this film. Initially my biggest issues were the characters, none of which I particularly cared for. Only Lux and Cecelia get any definition, the rest of the girls practically indistinguishable. The adults in this movie are easily hateable. Trip (Josh Hartnett) and his football squad truly didn’t know how to handle all that, and the neighbor boys were just odd. Upon further thinking, however, it seems as though this distance was a carefully constructed facet in order to place us in the shoes of those boys. The Lisbons are a mystery to us nearly as much as they are to them. When we see the fantasy of them barreling down the road with the Lisbon girls towards the end, smiling and laughing, for a second we think it is almost palpable. Perhaps the neighbor boys truly are a saving grace? But then the opposite happens. They don’t get a happy ending, and even if they did it wouldn’t be with those boys. The whole movie, truly, is from those boys’ perspective. We barely see more than they see of the Lisbons. Every fantasy about these two groups convening and growing close is a lie, because the boys do not know them and neither do we. This opens up the possibility of an unreliable narrator. Perhaps none of it happened quite like the boys and narrator have recounted. It’s a clever yet tough way to frame a story, but in the end it made me appreciate the movie a lot more.
The film’s soundtrack, composed by French musical duo Air, both shifts and cements its tone. Theme songs “Playground Love” and “Highschool Lover” generate the dreary feel of time passing. The piano keys hit solemnly. It feels like a gentle battle between hope and melancholy. Much of Air’s music for the film is like this. The soundtrack for this movie, both original and not, astoundingly brings context to the mood and how the characters are experiencing the world.
Color grading also does a lot of great work in this area. The editors do a delightful job of incorporating heavy color into every shot. The film defaults to a sort of yellow-orangey shade, giving the feel of an old photograph or perhaps a nearby fire. It feels very nostalgic, which is appropriate for the reflective point of view of the narrators. At important moments of the film the primary color will change to blue or green, adding a more serious, threatening or somber tone.
I finished the movie at an apprehensive four star rating, but feel now compelled to consider it to a solid confident four. Maybe four and a half actually, so perhaps not so confident. But just thinking about it and considering all the work that went into this movie and how the plot points connect is quite interesting. Perhaps I am just like the neighbor boys…..The idea of the film is now beginning to occupy more memory than the actual experience of watching it. Just like the film’s main poster, the complexities and confusions have morphed into a bright, blurry picture. Perhaps time for a rewatch?
