Movie of the Day: "The Virgin Suicides"

From imdb:

In 1974, in Michigan, the lives of a group of teenage boys are affected by the suicide of five girls from the Lisbon family. Cecilia (13), Lux (14), Bonnie (15), Mary (16) and Therese (17) move with their Mathematics teacher father Mr. Lisbon and their possessive housewife mother Mrs. Lisbon to a calm suburb house. Their beauties attract the attention of a group of boys that meet in the house on the other side to watch the girls. When Cecilia commits suicide, the girls stay at home for a period, returning to school later. When the handsome football player Trip Fontaine seduces Lux and spends the night outside with her, Mrs. Lisbon locks the girls at home, leading them to commit massive suicide. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

After watching the new Spider-Man last week I found myself wondering, “How can anyone stand Kirsten Dunst?”

Don’t get me wrong there’s a handful of her work that I love. But it’s never her that draws me into the film it’s usually the director’s take on her.

And that’s why I adore the Virgin Suicides. Sophia Coppola is the one responsible for creating this whole illusion that Dunst was someone to pine over, to obsess, and want. Because whenever she comes on screen you just sigh. She’s lovely, girly and most of all she’s a dream.

In fact most of the film is a dream. A kind of curly handwritten dream film with dissolves from flowers to cute boys and ponies. The movie is a gorgeous little flower, thorns and all.  The Virgin Suicides looks and feels like old photographs and Polaroid’s from a youth that we remember happening but in actuality never really did.

It’s like if the kids from Stand by Me had grown up a little. The kids obsess and over the tiniest of details. Coppola follows these obsessions to the max. You can tell how much she loves the wallpaper of the house and whose nail polish is chipped.

These girls exist in their own universe. They are fairy tales who want desperately to be real people.

Something should also be said about the parents, James Woods especially gives a hilarious and heart-breakingly simple performance. He loves his family so much and doesn’t ever seem to have the words to protect his family from themselves. His character seems to want to be involved more in how the girls are raised. But, well, I don’t really know why he doesn’t get involved, it seems like it’s because of the times and it also feels like it’s because of the mother. Who seems to suffocate the girls with her fear.

The mother played by Kathleen Turner, who reminds me a lot of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,  is understandable in her paranoia. After all the world is full of predators and a mother (especially one of a recent suicide) is there to protect, and the things she does seem to be good natured and by the book. But…Well they just break your heart.

These girls fate is set out for them. They are loved so much by everyone around them that they are not allowed bloom.

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Tomorrow's Movie of the Day Clue:

"Sleeping in a storage shed is the key to time travel"