Video Review |
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Video Review |
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Last Updated 03/01/01
Email: robitai@our-town.com
Virgin Suicides
Recommending
a movie like "Virgin Suicides" requires taking a bit of a risk. This movie will offend the sensibilities of some
audiences. Sometimes painful, sometimes
unsettling, it's a movie that will capture your attention and be worth your time. Besides, there's a certain safety in knowing you
can fast-forward or turn it off altogether and go about your business.
The "virgins" of the title do, indeed, commit suicide. Five beautiful teenage sisters, step-stairs in
age, find their world too much with them to survive. It's a world created by a religious
zealot of mother (Kathleen Turner) and a father (James Woods) whose greatest failure comes
from a shallowness that dulls his compassion.
The youngest daughter Cecilia (Hanna R. Hall) finds the strict, emotionless
household stifling to her creative temperament. She
sees no joy in life, and little likelihood of her situation ever changing. The diary that she leaves behind offers few clues
to the real demons that haunt her. Her passing becomes as enigmatic as her quiet presence
just before she flings herself from her bedroom window.
One might think that the surviving sisters would find a kind of strength in their
sister's sacrifice, but they don't. At the
advice of a psychologist, Ms. Lisbon relaxes the rules a little and allows Lux (Kirsten
Dunst) to have a boy over to watch TV with the family.
Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett) revels in the possibilities, and it's not long before
he convinces Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon to let all the girls go to the prom. It's a major coup d'état.
The results of caged birds being allowed to fly proves disastrous. For Lux and Trip, bad judgments rules the
evening's escapades, and they stay out all night. Mrs.
Lisbon, completely undone by the circumstances, reacts with a vengeance. She forces Lux to burn her record collection,
takes all the girls out of school, and makes them prisoners in their own home.
The action comes filtered by way of a narrator relating the events that have
already passed: a teenage boy in the neighborhood whose crew of adolescent males attempts
to understand the inexplicable. Their
involvement in the girls' lives (and deaths, for that matter) effects a kind of eerie
voyeurism. The boys are on the outside
looking in, but the experience alters their lives in ways they could never foresee.
From the blighted elm trees to the debutante ball where participants wear gas
masks, this movie demonstrates its director's flashes of brilliance. Sofia Coppola makes
her directing debut with "Virgin Suicides." Although her inexperience and
youthful exuberance make the film a little edgy in places, her directing has an
instinctive energy that promises great things.
As far as Kathleen Turner's and James Wood's performances, they're worth wading
through the painful parts to see. Measured, controlled, and always well timed, they create
in Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon a couple you won't soon forget.
"Virgin Suicides" qualifies as a movie you won't soon forget, as well.
Since the real new Millennium and the search for a suitable video
to review occurred simultaneously, I planned to review a movie associated with the holiday
event. I quickly exhausted my repertoire of
movies that had much at all to do with New Year's.
My friend Bill suggested "Ocean's Eleven," a 1960s
movie starring Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Eleven
gangsters plan a huge casino robbery, and Bill was relatively sure that all the action
takes place on New Year's Eve.
Then he called to say that it didn't take place on New Year's Eve
after all.
A new "Ocean's Eleven" starring George Clooney, Brad
Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon is in production. Maybe they'll stage the remake on
New Year's.
Vermont poet Robert Pack once wrote: "Pray for inspiration.
When inspiration fails, take that as your guide." So what follows are comments regarding three
completely unrelated movies that I watched this week in search of that elusive
topic-appropriate movie that I just didn't find:
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995): If you're into slow-moving,
intricate English movies, this is an acceptable choice, especially if either Hugh Grant or
Emma Thompson jell your jam. Just don't compare it to the novel. Jane Austen's writing possesses an unassuming
greatness this movie just doesn't muster. Much
of the dialog is lifted from the novel, and the relationship complications are the same,
so if you're a real Austenite, you can probably sit through this one without throwing your
novel across the room. Lots of weddings, but no New Year's Eve celebration.
THE COWBOY WAY (1994): This movie opens with cowboys and a roping
event. You'll feel right at home. Woody
Harrelson (Pepper) and Kiefer Sutherland (Sonny) make an energetic, seasoned cowboy duo
who head east to rescue their friend Nacho (Joaquin Martinez) from unscrupulous New
Yorkers. Violence, screaming, and funny
business occur when the unlikely pair confront the "foreigners" on New York
turf. You might be amused if you know any real cowboys who were wild and crazy in their
youth. I'm sure Pepper and Sonny would've celebrated New Year's had they had the
opportunity.
CHICKEN RUN (2000): This claymation movie is bound to be a family
classic. A group of determined chickens plot to escape the clutches of a vicious chicken
farmer. Their desire for freedom escalates when an ominous chicken pie machine is set in
place on the farm. These chickens are visionaries.
What ensues as the chickens execute escape plans proves to be
refreshingly brisk. This movie entertains without being overly didactic. It's about new beginnings, hope and faith in the
future. Hey! Sounds like a good way to bring in the New Year.
All movies mentioned available in DVD and Video, excepting
Ocean's Eleven (1960), which is available only on video.