Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Those of us who have seen "The Godfather: Part III" rued the day when Sofia Coppola next stepped foot on a movie set. Her mouth-agape/eyes-deadened performance in Papa Francis' crime-family finale set a new standard for incompetence, whilst making a solid argument for the banishment of nepotism in Hollywood.

When rumours started circling that Sofia would once again try her hand at moviemaking, cinephiles the world over searched for chopsticks to puncture their eardrums, and ice cream scoops to gouge out their eyes, in the hopes of sparing themselves from experiencing another one of her performances. The reactions were only slightly more mixed when we found out that she would be spending this shoot behind the camera. Hey, we thought, she can't be any worse as a director as she was as an actress. Can she?

Having finally seen the film in question, 1999's "The Virgin Suicides", I can report that not only is Sofia no worse behind the camera than in front of it, but she is a helluva lot better. Pretty damn solid, actually. Imagine that.

The story takes place 25-years ago in an unnamed Michigan town. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon, a geeky math teacher and his dutifully frumpy wife, are doing their best to raise five apocryphally gorgeous daughters. The film opens with a series of beautifully composed shots, touring around an idyllic suburbia. But before the audience can get truly comfortable in these surroundings, the mood is quickly shattered by an icy-blue image of Cecilia, the youngest Lisbon girl, lying bloody in her bathtub.

Cecilia survives. But before the film is done she will have made a second, successful suicide attempt. Her four older sisters will also perish by film's end. If you think I've spoiled anything, then you probably didn't read the film's title closely enough. And you probably don't realize that the inevitability of these girls' deaths (and all our own, perhaps?) is hardly the point of the film at all. It's the lives left behind, and how they have been forever changed, which matter most.

Coppola understands this perfectly, and spends much of her time getting the little moments right, the better to convey the reality of these kids' existences. If God is in the details, then "The Virgin Suicides" is a fine example of filmmaking the Yahweh. The opening credits, which paste doodled versions of the title across the sky like it was a crush-prone 7th-grader's math binder, perfectly set the adolescent tone. Later, a handsome football star, when accepting his homecoming king crown, grabs it before the Principal can place it on his head, thus narrowly averting a hair-muss. Mr. Lisbon, when entering his daughter's room to take a picture before their first big dance, feigns shielding his eyes with his hands. And then, in a symptom of his own nervousness, accidentally points the camera the wrong way around. These actions build up, and help create real people instead of movie characters. Some films focus on the small things in such a way that you notice them focusing on the small things, calling attention to their artificiality and thus defeating the purpose. Coppola's film never feels forced in this regard; its small touches are natural and realistic, and always help establish an authentic context.

According to legend (and the movie's press kit), Coppola was inspired to adapt Jeffrey Eugenides novel after reading it the first time, despite not owning the property or being at all connected with the production. When her script found its way into the original producers' hands, they loved it so much they hired her on as director (I suspect the prospect of having her famous surname on the poster probably helped them make up their minds). This kind of story, normally questioned as Hollywood bunk, is easy to believe because of the script's quality.

Witness this example, the exception that proves the rule: Early on, after Cecilia's first suicide attempt, her doctor says, "You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets." Cecilia, with a maturity thrice her real age, asserts, "Obviously, doctor, you've never been a 13-year old girl." This is the most self-conscious -- and theatrical -- line in the whole script. The rest of which is as innocent and true-to-life as they come.

As any good first time director will do, Coppola has surrounded herself with a cadre of seasoned pros. Most notable is cinematographer Edward Lachman, far and away the best thing about last year's underwhelming "Far From Heaven" (with apologies to Julianne Moore). Lachman captures the film's rotating colour palette without calling attention to its dynamism. When the film calls for bland muted tones, Lachman delivers a washed-out suburbia. When it calls for striking monochromaticity, Lachman can light a scene using only shades of blue, while still keeping the proceedings real (Cecilia's bathroom bedlam is one such example).

Despite their titular prominence, the five Lisbon girls, while all looking their parts, are mostly ciphers. Bonnie, 15 (played by Chelse Swain), Mary, 16 (played by A.J. Cook, an Uma Thurman dead ringer [no pun intended]), and Therese, 17, played by Leslie Hayman), are mostly just window dressing. None plays a character of any more substance than just a "Lisbon girl". Hannah Hall, who looks like a much younger Erika Christensen, plays 13-year old Cecila. Even though she checks out before the film is a half-hour old, Hall does a fine job delivering the soulless stare and angelic demeanor of Cecilia.

But it is Kirsten Dunst, far and away the most recognizable face, who plays the most well defined girl. Lux, 14, is the experimental flirt, doing her best to run around in the rain, free from her mother's oppressive umbrella. She has no trouble with Lux's desirability -- if you're aiming to get over your Dunst-crush, steer clear of this one. But besides that she also manages to throw in sly nods to Lux' awkwardness and her pain.

Josh Hartnett (as groovy teen Trip Fontaine; with a name like that, do I really need to describe his character?), James Woods (Mr. Lisbon), and Kathleen Turner (Mrs. Lisbon) are all fine in supporting roles, despite their wacky seventies fashions and stock character traits. Embarrassing cameos are delivered by Danny DeVito and Scott Glenn (the latter, as the family priest, sports a ridiculous wig and a miles-from-authentic Irish accent). The various teenage boys who dot the background, none of whom I can identify right now with accurate actor names, are all very authentic, very real, and certainly helped out by their relative anonymity (except for Hayden Christensen, who plays a would-be suitor; I didn't know Darth Vader grew up in Michigan).

The film's soundtrack offers a fine mix of seventies rock and soul, and contemporary alterna-pop. The former is best represented by Heart (although their 'Magic Man' will always remind me of that trailer scene from "Swingers"), Todd Rundgren, and Al Green's 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart'. The latter is mostly dominated by Air (well over a dozen songs). But Coppola, bless her heart, also managed to fit in three ditties by my countrymen Sloan. 'On the Horizon' scores the girls' introductory scene. And she was far from disinclined to also include 'The Lines You Amend' and 'Everything You've Done Wrong'. This may not mean a lot to you, but hearing these songs in the film came as a most-pleasant surprise for me.

Far less pleasant was the struggle I had getting my head around the film's main themes. The film generally focused its gaze on the girls, and what they were going through. While I appreciated the brief glimpses into their most private moments (all-too fleeting glimpses, if you ask me) I had an easier time setting up camp with the group of four boys who lived across the street, obsessing and fantasizing about the Lisbon girls through their telescope. In some ways, Coppola does too. We first see the girls through the boys' eyes: they sit across the street and watch, as the girls emerge from the family station wagon in lush slow motion. Given this kind of framing, it's hard not to idealize them.

The boys act as the film's Greek chorus; they aren't necessarily inside the story, but they are dedicated voyeurs and commentators. Much of their activity involves looking for people who have had authentic contact with the girls, and could be relied upon as credible sources. Then relaying this information to the audience (mostly through voiceover narration by an uncredited Giovanni Ribisi, which reminds, in both vocal inflection and effectiveness, of Ray Liotta's work in "GoodFellas").

It is through these boys that we get a glimpse into the obsessive dreamlife world of teenagers (one notable sequence shows the boys fantasy about traveling the world with the girls, through the mail-order catalogues that each group subscribes to). They obsess over these perfect teenage beauties so much it has a destructive effect on the rest of their lives. One schoolmate is even shown giving a present-day interview from inside a drug treatment centre, the implication being that his brief fling with Lux Lisbon put him there. I'd hasten to guess that the story would not be much different if, instead of a mass suicide, the girls had just moved away with their family, never to be seen again. True, the visceral punch that is the unknowable mystery of their death would be gone. But the boys' version of the film's themes would remain much the same.

On top of affecting the boys' lives, the girls' deaths also affect their suburban utopia. "Everyone dates the demise of our neighbourhood from the suicides of the Lisbon girls," says the narrator early on. It's easy to see how this house of cards was so easily tumbled; brief shots of the neighbourhood busybodies show a collection of repressed women, judging the tragedy in the Lisbon home, while whiling away the afternoon sipping martinis, self-medicating, and gossiping. This same kind of suburban hypocrisy is not new to cinema (see the aforementioned "Far From Heaven" for a 1950's version). But here it is integral to the story: without the stifling oppression of the shiny happy suburbs, the Lisbon girls, sensitive souls all, might have survived after all. They just couldn't find the same stock of ignorance that often times is traded in for bliss.

The poison of suburbia is even shown to have an effect on nature. A running joke has workers from the city marking the neighbourhood's sick front lawn trees for removal. And near the end of the film a poisoned lake releases so much noxious fumes that one family throws their daughter's coming-out-party with a gasmask theme. Despite the comic absurdity of this and other situations, the underlying message is clear: the lingering infestation of suicide is ruining all parts of the town.

In the end, "The Virgin Suicides" is a tough film to put back together in your mind. In many ways, it's your standard growing-up-in-suburbia fare, full of oppressive parents and awkward crushes and first kisses and dope smoking. But the ineffable reasons behind the girls' suicides elevate it to something more. How are these adolescent kids, none of whom are old enough to solipsistically understand themselves, supposed to comprehend the incomprehensible? Well, they aren't. To Coppola's credit, she understands this, and never reaches for an answer that isn't there. I cheered vigorously when her Mary Corleone was felled on the opera house steps at the end of "Godfather: Part III", for it meant that her excruciating performance was finally over. I cheered at the end of "The Virgin Suicides" for an altogether different reason: recognition of a job well done.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD