An adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides's highly acclaimed 1993 debut novel. Set in suburban 1970s America, The Virgin Suicides is told through the collective memory of a group of men who were boys at the time, and still yearn to understand what happened to the Lisbon sisters.
The five dreamy sisters – stifled by the rules of their overprotective religious parents – are quarantined away from social interaction when their youngest sister commits suicide. Their doomed fates indelibly marked the neighbourhood boys, who to this day continue to obsess over them, in a story of love and repression, fantasy and terror, sex and death, memory and longing.
Featuring a spellbinding performance from Kirsten Dunst, mesmerising cinematography and a now cult soundtrack by Air, The Virgin Suicides astonished audiences on release in 1999 with its captivating mix of beauty and horror, in a tale of disaffected youth and coming-of-age.
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola (who would go on to direct Lost in Translation and The Bling Ring), this dreamy yet devastating debut announced her singular vision, exploring both the aesthetics of femininity and the interior lives of young women.
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