"Virgin Suicides" is an adolescent "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" as teen boys try to figure out the beautiful sisters in their midst.
It's encapsulated when the first suicide attemptee faces Danny Devito as her therapist who says she has nothing to kill herself over: "That's because you've never been a 13-year-old girl."
While Josh Hartnett's period wig isn't very good, his first serious acting effort is quite good and he almost keeps up with the excellent young women.
Perhaps it's a result of a woman writer/director adapting a male-written book (which I haven't read yet), but it really get inside teen heads. We get only a little sense, however, of the adults the guys become even as one narrates Wonder Years style so why is this story even important to him. And the one guy we do see as an adult is not much more revelatory.
It's all a mystery, very much like "Picnic At Hanging Rock."
It's a beautiful looking film with a dreamy musical score.
(originally written 5/14/2000)
It's encapsulated when the first suicide attemptee faces Danny Devito as her therapist who says she has nothing to kill herself over: "That's because you've never been a 13-year-old girl."
While Josh Hartnett's period wig isn't very good, his first serious acting effort is quite good and he almost keeps up with the excellent young women.
Perhaps it's a result of a woman writer/director adapting a male-written book (which I haven't read yet), but it really get inside teen heads. We get only a little sense, however, of the adults the guys become even as one narrates Wonder Years style so why is this story even important to him. And the one guy we do see as an adult is not much more revelatory.
It's all a mystery, very much like "Picnic At Hanging Rock."
It's a beautiful looking film with a dreamy musical score.
(originally written 5/14/2000)