|
| The Virgin Suicides [2000] | ![The Virgin Suicides [2000]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41S6Y7F0T0L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Sofia Coppola
Actors: James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Michael Pare
Studio: Pathe Distribution
Category: DVD
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £5.97
You Save: £7.02 (54%)
New (7) from £5.44
Avg. Customer Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 1335
Format: Anamorphic, Pal, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Running Time: 93 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
DVD Layers: 2
DVD Sides: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5060002830499
ASIN: B00004YN6Q
Theatrical Release Date: May 12, 2000
Release Date: December 4, 2000
Availability: Usually dispatched within 5 to 9 days
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Sophia Coppola's alternately dreamy and unsettling film about five suburban sisters who all mysteriously kill themselves (the voice-over tells you as much in the first five minutes) casts a witchy spell that lingers like drugstore perfume on a hot day. Beautifully adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides' icily perfect novel (perhaps the best, if not only, work of fiction narrated exclusively in the first-person plural), the 1970s-set film is constructed as the collective memory of the neighbourhood boys who worshipped the beautiful Lisbon girls, blonde sylph-like teen siblings whose beauty and self-destruction still haunts and perplexes the narrators, now grown men. Why did they do it? Maybe because their Catholic mother (Kathleen Turner, magnificently clenched) locked them all up when near-youngest daughter Lux (the exquisite Kirsten Dunst) stayed out all night after the prom. Maybe it was due to a kind of pubertal feminine hysteria, set off by the first suicide of the youngest daughter Cecilia. Maybe they were infected by a more general malaise (the film fairly teams with images of dying elm trees, infested lakes and fetid nastiness). Or maybe they will just never know what it's like, in the words of Cecilia, to be a 13-year-old girl. Coppola has a canny eye for 1970s kitsch and the tawdry, touching magic totems of girlhood (tampons, bright bikinis, half-used make-up) and coaxes terrific deadpan performances both from the younger cast and the veterans. (James Woods as the nerdy Lisbon patriarch is as delightfully cast against type as Turner.) For all the languid gloom, there is great wit in the observation of 1970s decor and playful touches abound: airbrushed flashbacks like vintage Timotei commercials; inserts to reveal Lux has the name of her date magic markered on her knickers; teeth and eyes that sparkle unnaturally with post-production tricks. The soundtrack hits just the right wistful ironic note with a mix of period tunes by Todd Rungren, Gilbert O'Sullivan and the like, complemented by the electronica of French pop band Air (whose standalone efforts for the film are also available on a separate CD. A film as unforgettable as first love. --Leslie Felperin
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 A classic. January 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
After reading "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides, I was enraptured in the world of the Lisbon girls and their lives, and the rest of the street, so the film for me was a must. The film is true to the book missing out only a few, non-vital things. The actors and actresses deployed within this film are all perfect for the roles and the characters with only Kathleen Turner playing Mrs Lisbon as the exception. She did not capture the sheer strictness of the mother in the book but it seems somewhat more real in the film than the book, which it really should not be. That is the only slight flaw with this masterpiece which has been wonderfully enacted. The soundtrack is very emotive and is fitted in perfectly with the moods and tones created from the novel. Thank you Sofia Coppola. This is well worth the watch.
5*!
 Trapped in a stifling doll's house December 26, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In her debut feature film based on Jeffrey Eugenides' novel, Sofia Coppola constructs the claustrophobic atmosphere of a highly dysfunctional family in suburban America in the 1970s. It resembles how Sylvia Plath (who, like the five protagonists here, also committed suicide) described it a decade previously: "the motherly breath of the suburbs enfolded me. It smelt of lawn sprinklers and station-wagons and tennis rackets and dogs and babies" (The Bell Jar). In the film you can almost smell the scent of manicured lawns, freshly-ironed school uniforms and the pungent trail of air freshener. Coppola also has an uncanny eye for the paraphernalia of female adolesence: half-used red lipsticks, a kaleidoscopic collection of nail polishes, and multi-packs of tampons proudly stored in the bathroom. This is, the male voiceover tells us, "the imprisonment of being a girl", or as Cecilia (Hanna Hall) declares to a male doctor who downplays the significance of her suicide attempt: "Obviously, Doctor, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl."
The emotional impoverishment of the family situation is clear: the Lisbon parents (Kathleen Turner and James Woods) are suffocatingly strict, socially inept and utterly in denial. When the youngest kills herself, impaling herself on railings after a depressing house party, the family unit carries on as if nothing has happened: the girls return to school with bright pageant smiles and their bumbling father continues his routine of teaching maths and building model aeroplanes. Cecilia's suicide is - as so many suicides are, even today - covered up by her family and their priest (who registers it as an accident). The motivation for the sisters' self-destructive impulses is not etched out: the school boys who narrate the story from a grown-up perspective say they are intrigued, even mesmerized, by their copycat deaths, but do not scratch the surface of their motivation. I would imagine that in this way Coppola intends for the film to be "mysterious" and "haunting" (especially given the wistful Air soundtrack), but without a deeper sense of their psychological reality, it is difficult to be affected by the narrative. The five sisters become, like the Virgin Mary cards they drop or hand out to the boys, sacramental and sacrificial symbols rather than more mortal beings.
Kirsten Dunst nevertheless puts in a good performance as Lux (even her name - a brand of soap and detergent - suggests artificial cleanliness) as does Josh Hartnett as her caddish, self-adoring date, Trip Fontaine. The Lisbon parents are also well portrayed by Turner and Woods. But they - like their five blonde paragons of girlish suburban innocence - cannot beef up a script and approach that ends up being strangely artificial. With an underdeveloped sense of reality, The Virgin Suicides proves too devoted to a weightless dreaminess to lift itself above the level of stylish fairytale.
 Approach with caution July 19, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having finished the book a day before i went out and bought the DVD, i thought if it was anything like the book i would love it. Trouble is, i didn't find it nearly as satisfying.
Its not so much an interpretation of the book, as it is Sophia Coppola taking various passages from the book and putting them to screen...i'd say at least 80% of it is taken right from the lines of the novel. Trouble being that you get none of the continuity and depth of feeling you do with the novel. I think this is where it severely faulters.
Don't get me wrong, i'm glad i watched it - there is some good acting in it, the lead roles are well filled, but again because you get none of the same tone as you do in the book - which no matter what calibre of actor there may be in this film - you don't get a sense of character.
I love film, and i usually find that books i read are successful in the most part on screen. I just think that there is a massive lack of interpretation in this.
So, in conclusion i URGE you to read the book beforehand - its for your own good.
Sofia's freshmen project is to be commended June 29, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A lot viewer's know that Sofia Coppola is not much of a great actress, but she seems to have inherited some of her father's talents in this film. Coppola knows how to get the best from her actors and a few "coming of age" films have the sensual, dream-like quality as this 1974 look at upper middle class American suburbia.
Written and directed by her, this mesmerizing account of adolescent sexual socialization (set in the posh suburbs of 1974 Detroit) has a bittersweet quality, yet is tragic as well. A group of young teenage boys come into contact with five bewitchingly beautiful teenage sisters in their affluent neighborhood. Each savor the short time they have with these girls, who are extremely overprotected by their devout Catholic parents (Woods and Turner).
Humorous, sensual, and highly evocative of "boy-meets-girl awkwardness" as seen through the boys' eyes, this film is a tribute to an American way of life not unlike "American Beauty". However, the dreaminess comes to an abrupt end... an "awakening", if you will... by the boys as they come to grips with a tragedy they are barely able to comprehend Sofia Coppola is an immensely talented filmmaker. She recreates the 70's era effortlessly, and allows the characters to all be real people instead of mere thumbnail sketches.
While this movie might lack a standard plot structure it succeeds dramatically in capturing the mood and feel of a certain generation. Obviously this movie will speak loudest to those who experience adolescence in the seventies but it also communicates strongly to all people recollecting that period of their lives. The great tragedy imparted in this movie is that of young beauty extinguished and the fruitless search to discover how this crime against nature could have occurred.
The cinematography is beautiful, never distracting but always full of genuinely real images, which served to offset the hallucination tone of the movie. There is a relaxed pace to the film, and I was drawn into the hazy, misty memories that make up the bulk of the story.
Good Adaptation! June 5, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides and really enjoyed it. When I saw that the film was only a fiver, I thought "hell, I'll give it a shot" and really was pleasently suprised.
I would still recommend reading the book first, but was pleased that the film kept the same atmosphere- although it's quite a dark subject matter to focus on, there's still that slight comic feel to it. Also, both Euginides and Sofia Coppola are somehow able to create that light feeling that surrounds late summer- even though it completely contrasts with what's actually happening in the story!
If you've read the book, don't be quick to dismiss this.
If you haven't read the book- I'd say if you're a Donnie Darko fan then give this a shot!
|
|
|
Learn how to have your own
Amazon Shop
Travel Maps and Guides
zeugma
| | Holiday Travel |
alpharooms.com for cheap holiday deals in spain and worldwide
Disneyland Paris for a great family holiday or short break.
Holday Cottages throughout Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and France with Cottages4you
Hilton - need we say more, you will find Hilton Hotels in most areas throughout Britain, in cities and in the countryside.
Don't forget Travel Insurance
Airport Parking
|
|
|
|
