The Virgin Suicides (1999)

	Directed by: Sofia Coppola	COUNTRY USA GENRE Drama/Romance/ Myster NORWEGIAN TITLE The Virgin Suicides RUNNING TIME 97 minutes
	Produced by: Francis Ford Coppola Julie Costanzo Chris Hanley Dan Halsted
	Written by (based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides): Sofia Coppola

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Mr. Lisbon	James Woods
Mrs. Lisbon	Kathleen Turner	½
Lux Lisbon	Kirsten Dunst
Trip Fontaine	Josh Hartnett	½
Mary Lisbon	A.J. Cook	-
Cecilia Lisbon	Hanna R. Hall	-
Therese Lisbon	Leslie Hayman	-
Bonnie Lisbon	Chelse Swain	-
Chase Buell	Anthony Desimone	-
David Barker	Lee Kagan	-
Paul Baldino	Robert Schwartzman	-
Parkie Denton	Noah Shebib	-
Tim Weiner	Jonathan Tucker	½
Adult Trip Fontaine	Michael Paré	-
Father Moody	Scott Glenn	-
Dr. Horniker	Danny DeVito	-
Jake Hill Conley	Hayden Christensen	-
The Narrator	Giovanni Ribisi	-

Review

Sofia Coppola's directorial debut is a poetic and aesthetically assured adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' successful 1993 novel about the lives – and deaths – of five teenage sisters in a Michigan suburb during the 1970s, and the two separate groups of boys who fell in love with them. The film has a deliberately literary quality, narrated by Giovanni Ribisi, and doesn't really follow any traditional movie formula. Still – and despite the undoubted richness of character – the film does lack that final bit of nerve and tension that would render it the haunting mystery the group of neighbouring boys remember it as looking back several years later. I suppose it might have been lost in translation (obvious pun intended) between Eugenides' novel and Coppola's screenplay, but The Virgin Suicides nevertheless stands as a promising debut, and it plays as elegantly today as it did upon release. The ensemble cast of established stars and emerging young performers all do very well, no doubt helped by Coppola's sensitive direction.