| 100 |
San Francisco Examiner
Ethereal.
|
| 100 |
New York Post
It's hard to remember a film that mixes disparate, delicate ingredients with the subtlety and virtuosity of Sofia Coppola's brilliant The Virgin Suicides.
|
| 91 |
Portland Oregonian
Possesses a tone that wobbles masterfully between whimsy, dread, affection and horror, building on rich performances and an understated showiness to cast a queer and tingly spell.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Bewitching.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
A lovely, luminous dream.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Subtle, strange, off-putting, fascinating.
|
| 90 |
Salon.com
(Coppola) connects with the essential purity of Eugenides' story, stripping it down to its bare essentials and cutting straight to everything that's wonderful about it.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
In an astonishingly assured film debut, Coppola captures the poetry and sweetness of Eugenides' novel without allowing any of the standard rites of passage -- first dates, high-school dances -- to feel trite.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
From start to finish there's a shimmer of discovery about it - our discovery of it, Coppola's discovery of how much she can do.
|
| 88 |
Baltimore Sun
It gets under your skin and into your head, and you don't want it to leave.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
(Coppola) has the courage to play it in a minor key.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Marc Caro
It's quite funny, though not in a predictably irreverent way, and it moves along briskly - a little too briskly toward the end.
|
| 80 |
Dallas Observer
(Coppola) understands the crisp, oblique horror and wistfulness of Eugenides' narrative, plunking down five enchanting princesses into an environment that is anything but magical.
|
| 80 |
Village Voice
Coppola looks beyond the seductive metaphysical puzzle and locates the core of Eugenides's allegory in an obsessive, almost forensic act of remembering, both futile and inexplicably essential.
|
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
Coppola gives Suicides a haunted quality that is undeniably affecting, a feeling intensified by a wonderfully funny and touching Dunst.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
There's a melancholy sweetness here, a gentle humor that speaks to the angst and awkwardness of girls turning into women, and the awe of boys watching the transformation from afar.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
An artful blend of '70s detail and dreamlike moodiness makes Coppola's first movie an exceptionally promising directorial debut.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Has a great deal of empathy for that excruciating limbo that is female adolescence.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
In contrast to big-screen bummers we see every week, this movie conveys genuine sorrow.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Coppola infuses her movie with a dreamy poetic tone, and deftly translates the essential metaphors of youth, sexuality and death without sacrificing an earthy humor.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Humor prevails throughout, but it doesn't deflate the disturbing elements of the tale, which miraculously manages to stay droll, heartfelt and poignant to the end.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
Successfully venturesome, but you need to know that it's also a real downer.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
A very curious and eclectic piece of work--fresh even when it's awkward.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Glum and preposterous -- an operatically stilted adolescent martyr fantasy -- and yet, as staged by Coppola, it's well worth seeing.
|
| 60 |
TNT RoughCut
Sarah Raskin
One major inappropriate casting decision (Kirsten Dunst, who's made a solid leap to young adulthood in "Dick" and "Drop Dead Gorgeous" is cast as 14-year-old Lux?) and an underdeveloped motive for the girls' self-demise left me unaffected.
|
| 60 |
Washington Post
While not exactly a cop-out, Virgin may leave some viewers who crave traditional closure with the same hollow ache described by the narrator as follows: "What lingered after them was not life but the most trivial list of mundane facts."
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
The soundtrack (Heart, ELO, Todd Rundgren, and an original score by the French duo Air) is spot-on and the costume design (pukka shells and knee-socks) is hideously accurate.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
Except perhaps for Lux, who, like The Virgin Suicides itself, is a hothouse flower perishing for want of sunshine and fresh air.
|
| 58 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
While young Coppola is a pro with her camera, she'd be wise to brush up on her storytelling skills.
|
| 57 |
Mr. Showbiz
A detective story without a solution and a coming-of-ager without discernable characters.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
Sofia Coppola, who's directed the film from her own screenplay, narrowly misses making the story work on the screen.
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