“The Virgin Suicides” depicts girlhood, lack of liberation

“The Virgin Suicides” is the first movie I’ve ever watched solely because I loved its soundtrack.

Based on Jeffrey Eugenides’ 1993 novel of the same name, “The Virgin Suicides” (1999) tells the ‘70s-based story of the Lisbon girls: five sisters between the ages of 13 and 17 who infamously all commit suicide. It is told primarily through the lens of the neighborhood boys that spy on them, but the Lisbon girls’ youthful melancholy and perplexing personas captivate every person they encounter. In the sleepy Michigan town where they reside, the Lisbon girls are a subject of constant fascination.

Fourteen-year-old Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) is given the most screen time and is therefore the most fleshed-out character of the five, but all of the sisters have their own mysterious intrigue. Dunst’s performance is cheeky and layered and began a lifelong professional relationship between her and director Sofia Coppola.

Personally, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Therese Lisbon (Leslie Hayman) whenever she frequented the screen. She was mostly quiet yet had an assured aura about her that was really hypnotizing. I later found out that Hayman is the only nonprofessional actor and had actually grown up with Coppola. Coppola based the Lisbon sisters on Hayman’s clothing and demeanor, which made a lot of sense to me.

As a whole, the Lisbon sisters truly embody the unknowable. Confined to their house, they lounge on each other, flipping through magazines, bejeweling letters and listening to records. Time seems to exist around them, as if they were the narrators of girlhood, forever encased in adolescent pensiveness. As I watched them, I remembered that sickly feeling I had when I was younger: that I was old enough to know about the world, but not old enough to know how to process it.

Throughout “The Virgin Suicides,” numerous religious symbols are shown and referenced, but their significance is left up to the viewer. The girls’ mother (Kathleen Turner) is depicted as a strict, stoutly religious woman who cares for her children but wants them to be as modest as possible. In my opinion, I believe the girls internalized their mother’s careful religiosity and feminine ideals. They often wear white, which represents innocence and purity, and their possessions, most notably beauty products, are confusingly mixed in with religious icons. In one scene, a crucifix hangs on the neck of a perfume bottle, representing the clash between femininity, sexual appeal and the idea of sin.

In a religious context, feminine liberation often feels shameful, and the girls’ choice to present themselves as cherubic speaks to them feeling trapped and therefore denying themselves that liberation.

As I said in the beginning, “The Virgin Suicides” truly has one of the best scores I’ve ever heard. Listen to “Playground Love” and tell me you’re not in high school again, daydreaming about your math class crush. Tell me you don’t smell the adolescent B.O. in the hallways and the subsequent (poor) cover job with Axe body spray. Tell me your fingertips hadn’t just paged through a Tiger Beat magazine and that you weren’t trying to conjugate the Spanish verb “poner” in your head. Remember, it’s one of the irregular ones.

“Bathroom Girl” and “Suicide Underground” are my two other favorites. They perfectly reflect the movie’s cinematography: dreary, sun-drenched and desirably hazy.

Pair those original Air tracks with “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” and “Magic Man,” and “The Virgin Suicides” becomes as much a film to listen to as it is a film to watch. The scene in which the neighborhood boys and the Lisbon sisters take turns calling each other on the phone to play songs through the earpiece is a testament to the transcendental nature of music itself.

After reading the synopsis of “The Virgin Suicides,” I would’ve assumed it to be an extremely sad movie, which ruminates deeply on the inner states of the Lisbon sisters. Yet, the movie spends surprisingly little time giving us answers; the audience is just as left in the dark as the narrators. A review in Dazed Digital comments: “[The Virgin Suicides] acknowledged how complex, dark and sorrowful a young woman’s inner mental life could be. It didn’t glorify it, it didn’t brush it off—it just captured it, it respected it and gave it the room to exist.”

In the days since I’ve watched it, this movie has stuck with me. It didn’t explain itself, but it didn’t need to. I’m struck by many elements— the music, the wardrobes, the cinematography and the timeless allure—and I can’t wait to discuss it more with others who have watched it. Most recently, my co-editor Ugbad and I have agreed to disagree about the appeal of Trip Fontaine (he fulfills every part of my ‘70s bad-boy daydreams; she called him ‘the gap tooth boy with the wig hair’).

I’m off to read the book and watch Coppola’s other films, including the highly regarded “Lost in Translation.” If they’re anything like “The Virgin Suicides,” I’ll have a similar tonguetied admiration. It’s just, you know, special.