A story told through the fog of memory, 25 years after the fact, as well as from the perspective of a group of boys, who can't begin to fathom the five sisters who are the objects of their fascination. As a result, there is a certain inscrutability about what we see, a distancing. That may capture the helpless feeling survivors feel when someone they know commits suicide, especially when the reason isn't clear, or how we may remember events from our past and the emotions they caused, but spend a lifetime trying to understand them. Unfortunately, it also results in a feeling of not enough depth in the subject matter. I really would have loved to have gotten more of the perspective of the girls, and for them to have been better differentiated. Seriously, aside from the youngest and Kirsten Dunst's character, the others just blur together. We get glimpses of the double standard for young women and what strict, religious parenting might drive them to, but it was shallow, and in any event, it wasn't enough for me to truly love the film. Dreamy and elusive, it has its moments though, and it's set to a nice soundtrack.
Review of The Virgin Suicides
