The Virgin Suicides

She also has the services of a superb cast. Sofia Coppola knows and is perfectly attuned to the material, gliding beneath the surface of suburban ordinariness to reveal the extraordinary and investigate the unfathomable. ... Full Review

Kirsten Dunst is fantastic as the free-spirited and sexy Lux....In addition to the fine directing, the movie is very well cast.....One brilliant scene exemplifying this conceit occurs near the beginning of the film.....while her love interest in the story, Trip Fontaine, is portrayed with panache by Josh Harnett (despite a really bad period wig).....James Woods brilliantly captures Mr. Lisbon, the bumbling dad and henpecked husband..... ... Full Review

If you have experienced such a thing yourself, maybe you can relate to the film's beautiful and odd moments. Forget the agents, forget that the Coppola was so very bad in that needless "Godfather" sequel, read the script and because it is good, make the movie. ... Full Review

Bob is a once-successful movie star whose career is tapering off. It is flawed but shows Coppola's exceptional ability to evoke a sense of time and place and superb music selections. ... Full Review

The Virgin Suicides is an effective film because it doesn't pull at heart strings. The trick to this film is to enjoy the emotional journey of the character study even though you know that the main characters will die. ... Full Review

What makes her film, The Virgin Suicides , so interesting is that she has quietly crept out from behind her father's shadow and created something all her own. A lot of work has gone into the sound design and and the mix of music with subtle atmospheric effects works well. ... Full Review

Sofia Coppola's directing debut The Virgin Suicides was greeted by heady accolades at its 2000 Cannes Film Festival premiere.....Still the stand-out music by Air is a pretty good consolation to the film's shortcomings.....Flawed but kind of interesting, ultimately The Virgin Suicides falls somewhere in between these two responses..... ... Full Review

Coppola uses (and overuses) a variety of narrative techniques that distance the viewer from the story and characters. I don't think this movie was sending any message at all, and maybe that was its problem. ... Full Review

The Virgin Suicides is essentially an arthouse teen flick, but is far more truthful about the turmoil of adolescence than, say, Shes All That. Every performance is deftly restrained: James Woods and Kathleen Turner playing their ages for once as the frumpy, sexually repressed parents, Josh Hartnett as the cocky school stud and Kirsten Dunst as Lux, the source of the films turbulent sensuality. ... Full Review

Despite its wonderful peaks, The Virgin Suicides does hit some bum notes. In bringing Jeffrey Eugenides' book The Virgin Suicides to the screen, first-time feature director Sofia Coppola had the unenviable task of dealing with a brilliantly written novel about self-terminating teen girls that gains its mood and meaning almost entirely from the cumulative effects of its interior narrative and richly embroidered language. ... Full Review