With the exquisite Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola captured the novel’s complex nostalgia
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Sofia Coppola has said she might never have become a filmmaker if not for Jeffrey Eugenides’ first novel. Having read The Virgin Suicides (1993) on a recommendation from Thurston Moore, Coppola immediately connected with its depiction of suburban malaise and teenage desire. The film rights had already been bought and another writer attached to the project, but she decided to write her own adaptation, more as an exercise than anything. When the original screenplay was rejected for being too dark, Coppola stepped in and made Eugenides’ debut into her own.
It’s not hard to see why someone like Coppola, who had studied photography at CalArts and was an amateur photographer in Japan for a short time in the ’90s, would be attracted to The Virgin Suicides. Eugenides’ prose is evocative and lush, nearly woozy. Told from the point of view of a group of men looking back on their adolescence in the suburbs of Detroit, the tragic events that make up the plot are imbued with a heady power. When Cecilia, the youngest of the five teenage Lisbon sisters, first tries to kill herself, Eugenides likens her limp body on the gurney to “a tiny Cleopatra on an imperial litter.” His imagery and other sensory details are so wrapped up with the novel’s overwhelming sense of longing and lost youth that even quotidian scenes are rendered as mythic.
“I had a look in my mind of how it should feel while reading it, of that hazy, backlit style of ’70s Playboy photography,” Coppola told Vogue in an interview this spring for the film’s 20th anniversary. The film’s color palette, dominated by creams and tans and yellows, occasionally dulled by the sterile blue-gray of depression and decay, at once recalls the fashion of its mid-’70s time period while evoking a golden haze of idealized memory. The attention Coppola paid to the set design and wardrobe also functions beyond creating a realistic suburban setting. Cecilia’s room cluttered with candles and drawings, the flower print of her sisters’ homemade homecoming dresses—these are all details the narrators were, and still are, obsessed with, years after their classmates’ deaths. Alongside official documents like yearbooks and medical records, the boys collected diaries, family photographs, and grocery lists, numbering their “exhibits” as one would artifacts or evidence. For the narrators, the girls were nearly impossible to understand, a feeling that’s exacerbated when Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon forbid them from leaving the house after Lux breaks curfew the night of homecoming. The distance only deepens the boys’ obsession and their inclination to make icons of the girls. Everything more ordinary is left hidden, then imbued with magic once revealed.
While Coppola sometimes privileges the aesthetics of her films at the expense of story, here she shows just how much such details matter. The lipstick and Chinese fans, the vinyl albums and travel catalogs—before these objects become part of the boys’ collective imagination, they first form the texture of the Lisbon girls’ own lives. Like Lux writing out her crushes’ names on her underwear, they’re all external manifestations of inner desires.
Despite being well-received at Cannes in 1999, the film’s opening in the States the following year was modest. In the time since, the reverence for the film has grown considerably, reaching a peak in 2018, when it received a Criterion release (prompting a number of pieces like this one). The admiration is due, in part, for just how faithful Coppola’s adaptation of the revered novel is—not necessarily for remaining true to particular elements of plot or dialogue or character, though the director rarely strayed in that regard. Rather, it’s the overall tone she gets right, a lot of which has to do with the way the film looks. Along with cinematographer Ed Lachman, who used films like Terrence Malick’s Badlands as inspiration, Coppola alternates dreamy, ephemeral images with more mundane ones: a star of light glinting off of Lux’s eye when she first sees her crush Trip Fontaine; the outline of Therese’s underwear visible beneath her shabby nightgown. But Coppola did more than assemble a mood board of adolescent reverie and depression, of pretty blonde girls languorously draped over each other and looking sad; she slowed down to show the lives of teenage girls beyond the gaze of boys and men.
Essential to this mood is the film’s soundtrack and original score, Coppola once again pairing period-accurate choices with more stylish, figurative ones. By and large, the former is a mix of heartfelt singer-songwriter fare and sentimental soft-rock—Carole King’s “So Far Away,” ELO’s “Strange Magic,” Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again, Naturally”—some of which Eugenides mentions in the novel by name. All of this is cut through with a pair of sexy and charged Heart songs in prominent scenes with Trip (partially making up for whatever was going on with Josh Hartnett’s wig). Such selections conjure the era while avoiding the distracting sense of recognition that can come with bigger hits.
Of course, one of Coppola’s most inspired decisions in the film came in the making of the score. During a visit to Rough Trade in London, Coppola said she had picked up Premiers Symptômes, the French electronic duo Air’s debut EP, mostly because she liked the cover. Listening to the album while writing the Virgin Suicides script, she realized Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel’s dreamy sound was a perfect fit for the mood she wanted to summon, and asked the pair to score the film. It’s somewhat serendipitous but shows what can happen when a filmmaker understands the intangible but essential qualities of her source material and then follows her instincts to a less literal, more evocative place. Air’s score, one of the greatest of all time, is unobtrusive yet indelible, so much so that I can’t even think of the book without hearing the swooning sax and lackadaisical drum fills of “Playground Love.” It not only enhances the atmosphere that Coppola creates elsewhere, one that is both nostalgic and laced with danger, but also works as an album on its own. Its ethereal sounds woven around the film’s familiar pop songs reiterate one of The Virgin Suicides’ most universal concerns: our memories and what the passage of time does to them.
Crucial to this is the director’s deft re-creation of the novel’s distinctive point of view—the rare first-person plural—Coppola casting four relatively unknown actors as the boys and Giovanni Ribisi as the voice-over narrator. As we see the story unfold, we hear how the events of the past affected the boys as adults. Just imagining being with the Lisbon sisters scarred them “forever,” making them “happier with dreams than wives.” Having raised the girls to the height of deities in their minds, the boys see them as untouchable. Closer to devoted fans than peers, they have no idea they can interact with them in far more usual ways. When Lux, Mary, Therese, and Bonnie return to school after Cecilia kills herself, one of the boys introduces himself to Mary at their lockers. “‘I know who you are,’” she responds. “‘I’ve only been at this school for my whole life.’”
Despite reflecting this gap in the boys’ perception, Coppola elides the moment in the novel when it’s more fully realized. Because it’s made clear from the beginning that all of the Lisbon sisters will eventually kill themselves, the narrative tension surrounding the act is diminished long before it arrives. The story must therefore become about something else, and in both the novel and the film, it ends up being the boys themselves and the obsession that has not let them go, even in adulthood. But before the climax of the remaining sisters’ coordinated suicides, Eugenides creates something of a turning point for his narrators. At the end of a phone call where the boys and girls trade off playing songs for each other, the boys come to a realization:
We had never dreamed the girls might love us back… But little by little, as we shifted bits of information in our heads, we saw things in a new light. Hadn’t the girls invited us to their party last year? Hadn’t they known our names and addresses? Rubbing spy holes in grimy windows, hadn’t they been looking out to see us?… Thinking back, we decided the girls had been trying to talk to us all along, to elicit our help, but we’d been too infatuated to listen. Our surveillance had been so focused we missed nothing but a simple returned gaze.
Obsessed with their own obsession, the boys failed to recognize the girls’ agency. The Lisbons were not mere vessels for desire, but of course had desires of their own. Coppola lovingly re-creates the scene, letting her actors’ doleful faces and the yearning, sometimes schmaltzy music do much of the work, but she omits this piece of narration. It may seem like a small point, but perhaps in this deviation, the film is also asking a question, one that viewers will see it’s already answered: What’s more truthful, the boys who realize the gaze goes both ways or those who don’t? The film then ends where the book does, with the boys, now men, still haunted by the girls, trapped in that hazy realm where memory is overtaken by the stories people tell.
25 Comments
I was too young to go see this myself in theatres (I guess I could’ve asked my mom, but I assumed the word “suicide” in the title made it a non-starter) so I had to wait until it aired on TV to watch it. I remember hearing 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” for the first time and thinking that it was the greatest song ever.
May I suggest another 10cc song, that’s rather timely –
Let’s not forget Styx “Come Sail Away” and 10cc “I’m Not In Love”. I have this soundtrack permanently etched into my brain from working at Urban Outfitters when the movie was released. They were doing a cross promotion with stickers and some clothes and crap at least in Nyc. So the played the soundtrack A LOT. Not the worst mind you and I was getting quite sick of Macy Gray and if I was tired Kid A by Radiohead wasn’t always helpful either. So at least it was eclectic and I had a dance routine for Styx when it came on. Fun moody movie, it was like a suburban update on Picnic at Hanging Rock (NOT the Amazon series).
Picnic is a good comparison I hadn’t thought of before. I probably like that movie better but there’s some definite similarities.
I love several of Coppola’s later movies but haven’t ever revisited this one. My recollection is that the voiceover is an awkward fit – it’s obviously a product of the adaptation from the book (which I also didn’t love), but it means the visuals don’t stand on their own as well as they could.
The score by Air is definitely a highlight of this film and introduced me to one of my favorite bands. I had read the book the year before the movie came out as a high school junior and like you, I can’t think of the book now without hearing Playground Love. Both the book and movie are so good at capturing that weird mix of objectification and mysticism that awkward boys have towards girls. (Side note: vocalist ‘Gordon Tracks’ is Phoenix lead singer Thomas Mars -a fact that led me to check out that band as well).
Not a great film but a curiously memorable one from a director whose other work is pretty forgettable. What really works about it is its tone. I can personally vouch that this is the only movie I’ve ever seen, beside “Lifeguard,” that feels like the late seventies to a T. Some of that is the cinematography but most of it is the absolutely perfect song selection. Most period film soundtracks are a grab bag but they nailed it with this one. You wouldn’t believe how obsessed kids were about “Come Sail Away.”
Lost In Translation is far from “pretty forgettable”.Get better takes, bro.
I think Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette(this movie was good to revisit recently, I think she paved the way in making costume dramas accessible to younger audiences) are sort of cultural touchstones, far from forgettable.
Wow, I just watched this last night. The one other S. Coppola film I’ve seen was Lost in Translation, but the melancholic, dream-like quality of that one is here too, probably more heavy handed here but I can’t say it’s too indulgent given the subject matter. Really enjoyed it overall.Also made me realize I haven’t seen Kirsten Dunst in a movie in ages and nearly forgot how good she can be.
Watch On Becoming a God in Central Florida. Or Season 2 of Fargo. Those two performances made me fall in love with her all over again.
Is it streaming somewhere?
Coppola’s two later movies with Dunst, Marie Antoinette and The Beguiled (okay, three if you count her cameo in The Bling Ring) are all worth checking out too.
this movie is still one of my favourites, I think aside from the actual suicides, it does a great job at capturing the loneliness and dreamlike qualities of being a teenager. Even as an adult now, it’s easy to ridicule the silliness of teenage drama, but at that point in your life, you can’t help what you feel and just because I have perspective now, it doesn’t make what teenagers feel of any less worth. this movie easily takes me back to a time.
I was unable to relate to teenagers when I was a teenager, and still don’t care for most teen stories now. An exception would be something like Winter’s Bone, because the teen protagonist is taking on the responsibilities of an adult.
This (terrific) movie is streaming in lots of different places: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-virgin-suicides
When I first heard Air’s “Moon Safari”, I remember “Ce Matin-La” coming on, and instantly envisioning people running through a golden field on a sunny afternoon. And the part where Coppola uses this song in the film, I literally gasped out loud. She captured that vision EXACTLY how I saw it my head. Just a perfect marriage of sound and vision.
I loved Harnett in this.. wig and all. Maybe it was the wig and puka shell necklace. That’s such a hot look. Sigh. I was born in the wrong decade.
This is my uncanny valley film. I grew up maybe half a mile from where it takes place. These characters houses were between me and the park where I swam and I would have ridden my bike past them all summer. I was maybe ten when this takes place. I spent the entire film trying to pick out and parse the bits of reality from the fiction, like which Catholic school they attended, St. Ambrose, I think. I was very familiar with the house with that tunnel the Sicilian kid talked about. It is real and went between the local Don’s house and the house of his lieutenant next door. I met a later owner who told me it was still there, but the far end had been bricked up.I had heard it was based on a true store and for days after watching I called my mom, and my older siblings to try to find out if anyone knew about it. I particularly grilled my brother who was the right age, but he remembered nothing. That’s what freaked me out so much, that this could happen in my neighborhood, in my life, and I could know nothing about it. It was like it was my home and my life and not at the same time.I tried to read the book once and got one sentence in. It starts saying Cecilia was taken to the hospital I was born in. I read that name, went nope, and put it back on the shelf. I haven’t gone back since, but I did read Middlesex despite a few uncanny moments.
One of the few stories where the movie is better than the book. Loved the plot (which is identical across the two), but spent ages tracking down the book after seeing the film only to find I found Eugenides’ writing completely flat. The film has the killer soundtrack too.
not only are the boys cast with unknown actors, but–if I’m remembering correctly; it’s been too long since I watched this–the narration is cleverly handled such that you never really known which of the boys is supposed to be the younger version of Giovanni Ribisi’s voice…
Exactly! Similarly, in the book, you don’t know how many of them there actually are.
I read this book at some point and it pissed me off too much to ever watch the film. I kept thinking Who cares about the boys? Why are we at least a step away from the real story? Why do we not hear directly from the girls? Who the fuck cares if they’re virgins? Why is that the biggest deal here? And then I read another of Eugenides’ books and realized I just don’t have any patience for his prose in general. Many people do, clearly, but I’m not one of them.
The trailer is one of my all-time favourites.
When I was in high school (graduated in ‘04) this was one of my favorite films. This article is a good reminder t0 re-watch it, and maybe buy that Criterion release. I was enamored with Hartnett, thought Dunst was the ultimate cool girl, and couldn’t get enough of Heart. Wanted to try peach Schnapps, too.