The goddaughters

Sofia Coppola mixes nostalgia, suburbia, and teen lust into a volatile blend in The Virgin Suicides

Comments (0) By Gregory Weinkauf Thursday, May 4 2000
...continued from page 1

Coppola has a way with actors, pulling knowing performances out of Turner and Woods that make one chuckle at the notion that these two were ever perceived as a sexpot and a tough guy. She also coaxes terrific work out of the five sisters, a tricky feat considering that they're essentially an allegorical presence, representing budding passion and detached beauty. Hartnett is hilarious, seeming for all the world like an extra from Dazed and Confused, his period-specific haircut forming his head into the shape of the penis that guides his actions. Cocooned in a soundtrack heavy on '70s staples (Heart's "Crazy on You" is employed quite literally), plus the atmospheric nuances of the group Air, these actors feel like the real thing.

The work is particularly impressive, given that the director freely admits that she lacks firsthand knowledge of suburban living. She certainly gets the colloquialisms ("Want some more pop?") and the landscape (diseased trees reduced to stumps) on the nose. True, there's nothing new here, and Coppola's cultural appraisal certainly isn't as ballsy and radical as she seems to think, but The Virgin Suicides may stand -- for the collapsed fantasies, libidinous freedom, and cold reprobation of the age -- as a significant document of the daydream. Did our world really look like this? Were those princesses ever really there? The movie wisely leaves us to wonder.

Four out of five immaculate maidens: Chelse Swain, Kirsten Dunst, Leslie Hayman, and A.J. Cook make '70s suburban angst dreamy.
Four out of five immaculate maidens: Chelse Swain, Kirsten Dunst, Leslie Hayman, and A.J. Cook make '70s suburban angst dreamy.

Details

Starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Hanna Hall, Chelse Swain, A.J. Cook, and Leslie Hayman

Official site

Release Date:
May 5

Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides

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