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Just when my friend Allison and I thought we had free reign to comment throughout the entire movie, one other person walked in, five minutes after the lights dimmed. Dammit. It was still strange to see a movie on a Friday night with only two other people in the theater. It was understandable though: Sofia Coppola's adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel received a dismal review in the Buffalo "Artvoice", a free rag that all the hipsters read despite the fact that its only articles besides the movie and theater reviews are usually about Rudy Giuliani, as if we are expected to care. (To be fair, the movie got glowing praise in the more mainstream Buffalo News, but readers of that loser Jeff Simon's reviews have learned to take his praise with a shakerful of salt. So I'm betting that the movie's target audience of hipsters were more heavily influenced by the Artvoice review.)
I hadn't read the book, although the movie inspired me to check it out from the library today. Anyway I'm sure you all read Cranky's review of the plot so I will just briefly summarize: Five beautiful blond teenage sisters all commit suicide, and the movie is meant to be from the point of view of the neighborhood boys who, twenty-five years later, are still trying to piece together why they did it. And yes, Cranky is correct that the boys are morons for not figuring it out. It would be one thing if the boys had never had access to the house or the parents and were left on the outside always guessing, but they were inside the house for a disastrous party, and they had a pretty clear picture of what sort of repressive Jesus freak Mrs. Lisbon was.
On the subject of Mrs. Lisbon: Kathleen Turner got fat. God damn. I remember that smoky-voiced babe from Body Heat and Romancing the Stone and I look up at the screen and there's this dumpy old woman. I guess it's a testament to her skills as an actress-- maybe she even gained weight just for the role a la Stallone or De Niro, who knows. But boy did she look gross. And it was effective. James Woods was also surprisingly subdued as Mr. Lisbon, the dorky math teacher who's 100% whipped. Wonderful supporting job by both the adults in this film. (oh, and Danny DeVito, Turner's chronic co-star, appears briefly as Cecilia's therapist.)
As for the young'uns, well...Kirsten Dunst excelled as the slutty Lux Lisbon (the only sister for whom the movie's title is a misnomer), and Josh Hartnett did an admirable job as the very un-admirable Trip Fontaine, although maybe I was unfairly biased against the character since Hartnett looked scarily similar to someone I knew in high school.
The rest of the cast are completely bland and indistinguishable. I had a hard time telling one sister from the next. I knew Kirsten Dunst, because she's famous, and the youngest sister Cecilia looked different enough to tell apart (Allison claims she was in Forrest Gump, I don't remember much of that movie though). She bites it early on though. The middle three sisters-- Bonnie, Mary, and Therese-- were there pretty much for decoration. I think one of them was Dominique Swain's sister. The oldest one looked freakily like Uma Thurman, close enough to be related. Dunno. The end credits were not done like playbills, just with the actors' names.
As for the story, well...this flick is an hour and a half long. It feels a lot longer. This is a very plodding movie that drags on in the middle. Cecilia bites it within fifteen minutes, and (HERE'S THE BIG SPOILER, DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANNA KNOW) the rest of them cut out all at once. I thought it would be a situation where the sisters drop one by one, in the Cranky Rule of Death for War Movies (see Saving Private Ryan review for the particulars). After an hour had passed and there were still four sisters, I was like, "Let's go already!"
Coppola uses (and overuses) a variety of narrative techniques that distance the viewer from the story and characters. Voice overs are bad enough, but she then breaks that with a documentary-style "interview" with Trip all grown up. Then all the superimposing of Lux's face over clouds in the sky and shit! Make it stop. It does lend a hazy, dreamlike quality to the movie, but only at the expense of the audience giving a rat's ass about any of the characters.
I read a post in the Virgin Suicides forum by someone who claimed the movie will send the wrong message to its target audience, that "the media will make you a big star, you'll be remembered forever and considered a saint" or something like that. He must not have stuck around until the last few minutes, because I saw something different. Although the neighborhood boys are still haunted by the sisters' death, the scene at the debutante ball showed that the other residents of the town thought them pathetic and laughable (when the drunk guy fell backwards in the pool yelling snidely, "I've had it! I'm a teenager, I have problems!"). I don't think this movie was sending any message at all, and maybe that was its problem. Coppola's attention to detail was wonderful, but ultimately the movie had no point. Some good performances and a literary pedigree do not a classic make. Still, it's worth renting when it comes out on video.
7 out of 10 (convinced that critics would be kinder to anyone but Sofia Coppola, since they're still smarting from seeing her in Godfather III)
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