The Virgin Suicides

I watched this movie so long ago, so I probably don’t remember everything, but I feel compelled to write out a short review for it. Coppola encapsulates the fragile sexuality of teenage girls in a way that no other Hollywood director has ever managed to do. She understands Eugenides’ characters perfectly and translates that onto the screen. The repressed sexuality of the Lisbon sisters appears through their nauseatingly pink room cluttered with perfume bottles, stuffed animals, and notes pinned to the wall. The bra (probably Lux’s) dangling from the crucifix above the bed. The countless statues of angels nestled beneath the virgin mother illuminated by the lights of the candle. The tiara from the school dance carelessly thrown on the floor. In the same way, she captures the portrait of the male gaze. You could just write off Trip and his friends as horny teenage boys, but they are so much more than that. Decades after the death of the sisters, they obsess over them and claim to love them, yet they never really knew the Lisbon girls. They love the versions of them that exist in their minds, not for they actually are. The idea of the Lisbon girls exists in the hallways of their hormone-fueled Catholic school. They exist on the squeaky gym floors of the homecoming dance between fruit punch-soaked kisses. But that’s not really them. The secret of the Lisbon sisters is kept within the walls of their house in that sleepy Detroit suburb. The house that was there throughout all their short, tragic lives.