'The Virgin Suicides' is a beautiful, understated, and tragic drama, punctuated by great rock music of the late '70s, and featuring terrific performances, particularly by Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartlett, and a nearly unrecognizable Kathleen Turner. What makes the film even more remarkable is that it is the directorial debut by Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, Sofia, best known prior to this by her less-than-stellar performance in 'Godfather 3'! Her sensitivity with this material establishes her as a director to be reckoned with, and a true talent!
The film focuses on the five Lisbon sisters, beautiful, yet repressed by a religious and overly protective mother (Turner), who encourages their intellectual growth, but tries to block any sexual or emotional stirrings. The girls turn their passions into other channels, bonding tightly with one another, and viewing the world as outsiders. When the youngest attempts, then succeeds at killing herself, the family gains an unwanted notoriety, and a group of local boys begin to worship the remaining sisters from afar, gathering materials, and creating a fantasy world about them.

Lux, the most beautiful and free-spirited of the sisters (Dunst), attracts the attentions of the most popular boy in school, Tripp (Hartnett), who confuses raging hormones with love, and begins a campaign to 'have' her. Winning the respect of their father (James Woods, in another excellent 'against-type' portrayal), he succeeds in wearing the mother down, and arranges 'dates' for the sisters, so he can take Lux to the Homecoming Dance. The party provides the springboard for the tragedy that gives the film its name, and catapults the girls into icons that the boys who admire them can never forget.

"The Virgin Suicides" is a touching, artistic film which transforms you through various stages of grief to realize what you already knew all along - Suicide is pointless. The film focuses on the lives of five teenage sisters from the perspective of the teenage boys who adore them. It's warm, funny, and totally engaging…not to mention a soundtrack to die for! There are incredible moments of cinematography - images that burn like when mother Kathleen Turner insists that her daughter, Kirsten Dunst burn her rock albums, Kiss, Aerosmith….the overwhelming stench and smoke billows out the doorway behind her when Kathleen throws the rest in the trash…and without a flinch she re-enters the billowing doorway. Only a few rocky transitions between scenes catch you by surprise and pull you out of Sophia's incredible imagination and back to your theatre seat. With wonderful performances by Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, James Woods and the rest and powerful directing by Sophia Coppola…you're left wondering as any friend or parent would - "why?" "Didn't they know we loved them?"

Sophia Coppola moves with her moody, dark and whimsical first feature from behind the camera.Truly mesmerizing and accomplished directorial debut about an enigmatic quintet of innocently seductive teenage sisters who all kill themselves in the course of one month in the mid-1970s.
The story was adapted by Coppola herself from a bestseller by Jeffrey Eugenides, and is curiously told from the perspective of a handful of neighborhood boys, smitten and spellbound by the girls as teenagers and still haunted by their inexplicable deaths 25 years later.
Wholesomely beautiful Kirsten Dunst ("Dick," "Drop Dead Gorgeous", "Spiderman"), an astoundingly unaffected young actress with an intrinsic understanding of her sweetness and budding sexuality, stars as Lux Libson, the middle sister whose quiet rebellious streak makes her the center of the boys' attention.

Dramatic as teen life is, this film takes it up a notch, and really makes you feel. Only to make you feel the worst you thought you could. Despite all happinesss a young girl is supposed to feel, the following will make you remember how much sadness there is, not just in obvious heartbreak, but in subtle, nonchalent mindnumbing-ness of decent society!