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Review

From the opening frames of The Virgin Suicides, one feels the potential of a major new filmmaker in Sofia Coppola. Yes, that same Sofia Coppola who nearly sabotaged her father’s epic The Godfather III. But she may have found her calling if her directorial debut The Virgin Suicides is any indication, for this is a film of some power. The tale of the Lisbon family is a tragic one. The five Lisbon girls commit suicide, first Cecilia and then the rest. Our narrator is the grown voice of one of the five neighborhood boys whose lives have been marked forever by their fascination with the elusive and beautiful Lisbon girls. Mr. Lisbon (Woods) is a high school teacher who slowly loses his mind trying to pretend everything is normal in his blighted home. Mrs. Lisbon (Turner), a devout Catholic mom, has one role in life: the repression of all appropriate emotion in her household. Being a fractured look at suburban repression, the dowdy design is as important as the smart adaptation of the Jeffrey Eugenides novel, for words and atmosphere are equally telling. The performances are understated and pitch perfect. Turner trades her sultry sex goddess for repressed matriarch, and Woods is moving as the clueless father. Among the teenagers, Dunst and Harnett are particularly affecting.