Information about The Virgin Suicides (film)

The Virgin Suicides
Directed by	Sofia Coppola
Produced by	Francis Ford Coppola Julie Costanzo Dan Halsted Chris Hanley
Written by	Sofia Coppola (screenplay), Jeffrey Eugenides (novel)
Starring	James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst Josh Hartnett
Music by	Air
Distributed by	Paramount Classics
Release date(s)	March 21, 2000 (2000--) [1]
Running time	97 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$6 million[2]
Gross revenue	$4,859,475
IMDb profile

The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 American film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett. Based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, the film tells of the suicides of the five Lisbon sisters in an upper middle class suburb of Detroit during the 1970s. The girls’ suicides fascinate their community as their neighbors struggle to find an explanation for the acts.

Plot outline

The film takes place in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the 1970s, as four neighborhood boys look back on their neighbors, the five Lisbon sisters. Beautiful but strictly unattainable due to their overprotective parents, Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia are the enigmas that fill the boys' dreams.

The film begins with the suicide attempt of the youngest sister, Cecilia, and the immediate aftermath. During a chaperoned party that summer - intended to make her feel better - Cecilia excuses herself mid-party and finally succeeds in taking her life by jumping off the roof and impaling herself on an iron fence. In the wake of her act, the Lisbon family isolate themselves even more within their community, heightening the sense of mystery about them.

The new school year starts that fall and Lux, the prettiest of the sisters, forms a secret relationship with Trip Fontaine, the school heartthrob. Trip eventually persuades Mr. Lisbon to allow him to take Lux to the Homecoming dance (by promising to find dates for the other sisters and go as a group). After being crowned Homecoming King and Queen, Lux and Trip consummate their love on the football field that night, and Trip abandons her immediately afterwards.

Having broken curfew, Lux and her sisters are punished by Mrs. Lisbon by being taken out of school and sequestered within their house indefinitely. Unable to leave home, the Lisbon sisters contact the boys using light signals, and share songs over the phone as a means of communicating their emotions back and forth.

During this time, Lux begins to have anonymous sexual encounters on the roof of the house late at night, while the boys watch from across the street. Finally, after months of confinement, the Lisbon girls signal for the boys to come over one night - presumably to help them escape from the house. When the boys arrive, they find Lux alone, smoking a cigarette in the living room. She invites them inside to wait for her sisters, while she herself goes to wait in the car.

The boys wander into the basement and discover a body hanging from the ceiling; terrified, the boys rush back out of the house. In the process, they stumble across the bodies of the remaining Lisbon sisters. who had all killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact moments before: Therese took sleeping pills; Bonnie hanged herself in the basement; Mary stuck her head in the gas oven, and Lux died of carbon monoxide poisoning by leaving the car engine running in the garage.

Devastated by the suicides of all their children, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon quietly flee the neighborhood, never to return. The Lisbon house is sold soon after, along with all their personal belongings, while their neighbors - unsure of how to act - go about their lives as if nothing important really happened. The boys, however, find themselves unable to forget about the Lisbon sisters. They spend the rest of their lives reviewing the Lisbon girls', and the sequence of events over and over... only to realize that the mystery of the girls is never to be solved, and the Lisbons will haunt them forever.

Cast

• James Woods as Ronald Lisbon
• Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Lisbon
• Kirsten Dunst as Lux Lisbon
• Josh Hartnett as Trip Fontaine (teenager)
• Michael Paré as Trip Fontaine (adult)
• A.J. Cook as Mary Lisbon
• Hanna R. Hall as Cecilia Lisbon
• Leslie Hayman as Therese Lisbon ^[3]
• Chelse Swain as Bonnie Lisbon
• Scott Glenn as Father Moody
• Danny DeVito as Dr. E. M. Horniker
• Anthony DeSimone as Chase Buell
• Lee Kagan as David Barker ^[4]
• Robert Schwartzman as Paul Baldino
• Noah Shebib as Parkie Denton
• Jonathan Tucker as Tim Weiner
• Giovanni Ribisi as the Narrator

Score and soundtrack

The film's score featured thirteen tracks by the French electronic band Air, including "Playground Love". The film soundtrack featured songs by 1970s-era performers and by Sloan. A separate soundtrack album was released, featuring music from Heart and Todd Rundgren.

• The Hollies - "The Air That I Breathe"
• Carole King - "So Far Away"
• Heart - "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man"
• Sloan - "Everything You've Done Wrong", "The Good in Everyone", "On the Horizon", "Can't Face Up" and "The Lines You Amend"
• Electric Light Orchestra - "Strange Magic"
• 10CC - "I'm Not in Love"
• Gilbert O'Sullivan - "Alone Again (Naturally)"
• Todd Rundgren - "Hello, It's Me"
• Styx - "Come Sail Away"

Notes and references

External links

• Official movie site
• Tribute site with screen caps and interviews

•  • [ e] Films written and directed by Sofia Coppola
Lick the Star (1998, short) • The Virgin Suicides (1999) • Lost in Translation (2003) • Marie Antoinette (2006)