The Virgin Suicides film review

Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides is a look into the lives of five sisters that could be in any American family- middle class, sheltered, beautiful blondes that only want their freedom. The movie follows their lives through the eyes of an unnamed male neighbor who, along with his neighborhood friends, has a fixation on the girls. They represent to the boys sexuality, daydreams, and later, when their mother keeps them inside the house for weeks at a time, the chance to be the proverbial knights in shining armor. None of these concepts become realized, though, and it is the girls’ haunting, early suicides that make the story.

The five sisters, aged thirteen through seventeen, all embody the ideal teenage girl- virginal (at first), beautiful, and apparently happy. The image begins to crumble apart when Cecelia, the youngest, attempts suicide for the first time. She survives, though, and her middle-aged male doctor, in a fit of Freudian clarity, decides what she needs is more men in her life, and implies to her that her pain is not very real. The movie has many sharp one-liners, but my favorite is Cecelia’s response: “Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”

Their mother takes the doctor’s advice to heart, though, and to the delight of the neighborhood would-be suitors, throws a party for the girls. The party ends traumatically, with Cecelia ending her life quite publicly on the front lawn.

Though the movie is only just beginning here, and the plot moves along at a tensely slow pace (it’s called The Virgin Suicides for a reason, the viewer is reminded, and is left apprehensively wondering when there’s going to be another beautiful girl gruesomely ending her life), and is primarily focused on Lux Lisbon, the most rebellious daughter, I found Cecelia to be the most intriguing character. We find out later that she was intelligent, always writing in her journals and daydreaming. She cared about the environment, worrying about the trees that were apparently dying in her neighborhood. Her suicide is a catalyst to the rest of the lives in the movie, and forces everyone to acknowledge something they’d rather not: that something is not quite right in their ideal suburban home.

The narrator is puzzled by the death of Cecelia but the girls still seem to be a novelty to him and his friends, as they collect puzzle pieces of their lives to make sense of it. Even when the film is over, though, he still won’t understand- because, like Cecelia said, he’d never been a thirteen year old girl.

The events following Cecelia’s death eventually lead to tragedy for the whole family when the parents overcompensate by becoming more and more protective until a transgression of Lux’s leaves them all locked in the home, with no escape and no means of expression and communication. At school, the sisters act like they’re not missing one, and no one talks about why Cecelia killed herself. It is obvious that everyone is supposed to assume that she was crazy, or stupid.

I saw this tied in with the theme of strangled expression quite clearly. She was just another beautiful daughter to protect by restriction. These theme is shown again and again, when the girls leave tiny notes to the neighborhood boys instead of having conversations, when Lux has to burn her music collection, and when the girls sneak around to play records for boys over the phone. They are desperate to understand themselves and the dreams they have even when they are denied that freedom again and again- and they all take the only choice they feel they have left, which is their own lives.

The film, I believe, speaks very poignantly on Jessica Valenti’s Purity Myth- these girls are seen as commodity, something to be treasured and not “dirtied.” Lux notably struggles with this, although it is shown in the other girls, too, particularly when they go to a homecoming dance together. It is clear that their beauty and purity are what drives their parents to keep them locked inside. The film is a cautionary tale of sorts, in that sense: girls, no matter how young, vulnerable, and beautiful, need to be able to express their individuality and communicate- if not, the rebellion could be dangerous.

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