THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
Year: 1999
USA: Paramount Pictures Corporation
UK: Pathe Distribution
Cast: James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Hanna R Hall, Chelse Swain, A J Cook, Leslie Hayman, Danny DeVito, Scott Glenn, Jonathan Tucker, Anthony DeSimone, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Duquet
Director: Sofia Coppola
Country: USA
USA: 97 mins
UK: 96 mins
USA Rated: R for strong thematic elements involving teens
UK Certificate: 15 for suicide theme and some moments of horror
USA Release Date: 5 May 2000
USA Release Date: 21 April 2000 (Limited Release - Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco)
UK Release Date: 19 May 2000
Synopsis
In an ordinary suburban house, in the middle of 1970s America, lived the five beautiful, Lisbon sisters, whose doomed fates indelibly marked the neighborhood boys who to this day continue to obsess over them. What happened to the Lisbon sisters is a tale at once darkly funny and deeply poignant, a story of love and repression, fantasy and terror, sex and death, memory and longing.
The five Lisbon girls ? Therese (Leslie Hayman), Mary (A J Cook), Bonnie (Chelse Swain), Lux (Kirsten Dunst) and Cecilia (Hanna Hall) were everything desired and completely off limits due to their parents? (James Woods, Kathleen Turner) strict household rules. From afar, the boys watched the girls, then, they witnessed Cecilia plummeting from her bedroom window. In the wake of Cecilia?s shocking act, the Lisbons shut out the world and retreat into their own world.
It seems they will never recover until Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett) ? the town?s hunk and dream date ? begins to pursue Lux Lisbon. Then Trip does the unthinkable: he asks Lux Lisbon to the prom, allowing all the remaining Lisbons to venture for the first time to a school dance.
For one brief evening in paradise, four boys, including Tripp and Tim Weiner (Jonathan Tucker) the sleuth in this mystery, get as close to the Lisbon sisters as anyone has ever been. But when Lux and Tripp get a little too close, events spiral out of control. The Lisbon girls are locked away for good, taken out of school, incarcerated by Mrs. Lisbon. Lux descends into an outlaw promiscuity, which provides endless nights of binocular bliss for Tim and his friends. But the boys no longer want to just watch the Lisbon girls. Now they want to save them . . . and by extension their own doomed youth and innocence.
Based on Jeffrey Eugenides? acclaimed novel, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES is a dark, grown-up fairy tale carved out of the funny-sad fabric of suburban teenhood. The film is written and directed by Sofia Coppola, who makes her feature film directorial debut.
