The Virgin Suicides

While Sofia Coppola's second film, Lost In Translation, remains her finest, the '70s-set The Virgin Suicides was a good start to her writing and directing career. Her debut is far from perfect, although it's lyrical, haunting and it looks fantastic. Now, we had issues with Coppola's loyalty to Jeffrey Eugenides' book, especially the narration and the inconsistent use of 5 boys across the street. Still, the movie is a good one. James Woods and Kathleen Turner as the parents and Kirsten Dunst as the most-rebellious of 5 daughters are the key members of a family of cloistered Catholics who live in the Michigan suburbs. The title of the movie gives away what happens...but why did they do it? We speak at length about the unknowable. So as June ends, take in Have You Ever Seen's 674th podcast as we throw it back and forth about The Virgin Suicides. Well, Actually: Bev is correct that Lux is 14 and is the second-youngest Lisbon...and because Ryan spent this episode thinking she was older than that, we didn't get as much into how she's a minor having sex with grown men as we probably should have. Also, this movie was playing at festivals before Freaks And Geeks hit TV screens in the fall of '99, so the movie used "Come Sail Away" in their homecoming dance before the TV show did. Sparkplug Coffee! They sponsor us and they offer our loyal listeners a onetime 20% discount. Just use our "HYES" promo code. The website in question is "sparkplug.coffee/hyes". Subscribe to Have You Ever Seen in your podcast app, but also find us on YouTube (@hyesllis in the searchie dealie). Rate, write a review, comment, follow, all that. We use social media. Ryan is @moviefiend51 on Twi-X and ryan-ellis on Bluesky. Bev is @bevellisellis on the first and bevellisellis on the second. And we read all your emails, even if we're slow to respond ([email protected]).