What the heck is this movie about?
Whenever I watch a movie I don't fully understand, I come straight to these boards and read a variety of interpretations. After I read the reviews and debates on this board I decided most of the comments on "The Virgin Suicides" are garbage.
So what was this film about?
Many of the interpretations on this board discuss the strict parents. I am nearly positive the intention of this movie was not to make a comment on parenting. If that is the case, this movie is crap. Though the parents dictated the girl's lives, and were overprotective, there was no normal cause for suicidal thoughts. The moron gossipy neighbors were wrong! They were being satirized. It's the narrator that correctly asserts that the suicides were a complete mystery.
I was captivated enough by the film, but upon seeing the ending I completely turned on the movie. Because in the end, I felt that it had told us nothing. These girls seemed to send a shock wave of bad things. But it was giving these characters power they didn't deserve. We are TOLD all these things, but what was honestly so special about these girls? Aside from the Cecile and Lux, the other three are interchangeable, almost traitless. From what the movie shows us, they were normal in every way, coming of age. And the power and mystery surrounding their suicides, (suggesting that it was anything other than a bad decision) is offensive and requires justification in my eyes.
I really didn't like how the movie tells you in the beginning, you won't understand this if you haven't been a teenage girl. Make no mistake, the movie, tells us, the audience, that. From the mouth of a 13 year old bitch who magically has all the knowledge and insight of an adult writer. The early Ribisi narration tells us that the girls held all the cards. They were light years ahead of the boys, and they knew everything about life love, and the narrator and his friends. This was explained by a narrator, but never shown in the film. Not really. What we are told and what we are shown do not match up.
Finally, The ending monologue confirms what the audience has been gypped of: A resolution to the titular acts. It wasn't a message about why they killed themselves. It was left a mystery! Though many of the film viewers feel they know why it happened, the very character who's eyes we see the story through, and who obsessively collected the evidence, has no idea.
We are left to imagine. And people make conclusions according to their own biases and perceptions. I feel like this movie has the potential to connect with people, especially because of the passion in the coming of age elements, but with the truths, come many subtle untruths (IMO). The characters are so subtle and realistic that the writers voice in all of them is barely noticeable.
This is just my initial interpretation. If I watch it again some time this might change radically. Also if I read some interpretations that sound halfway sensical that would help me figure it out. Because I do have questions I have no idea how to answer.
1. Why cut to a future Trip Fontaine? That made no sense to me. Didn't help the story at all. All I could think was. You can't cast a different actor to play a character who looks nineteen. It never works. It corroborated the haunting effect the girls had, but why? Why, why, why?
2. Why invite the guys in the suicide house at the end? Why mess with them like that? I honestly have no ideas. If I could talk to Sofia Coppola I'd ask her about that first.
Maybe the key to everything is just something I overlooked. All I know is open ended movies often lead to everyone making their own stupid conclusions. Go to a Coen Bros. movie board, and the majority are interesting, compelling interpretations. This movie seems to spark a load of unsatisfying retarded debates and observations. The people who connect with it most do the worst job at explaining why.