The Happening "When I grow up, I'll turn the tables", once sang the underrated alt rock outfit Garbage back in the '90s. Sofia Coppola has taken this mantra to heart and promised this since her 1999 debut effort The Virgin Suicides. Adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides 1993 novel. A semi well written for what is but also inherently trashy novel. Eugenides does his best but there's no denying the immaturity of the material.
Now, I couldn't tell you if he's part of that literary Brat Pack of Brett Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney but he should be. This is more my ex's field so you'd have to ask her but even though they're sort of disconnected by decades, they're all connected to me because of how juvenile I believe they all are (a source of many arguments back in the day). At best they make edgy teenage rubbish that you could either champion out of nostalgia or ironically. Should have known there'd be trouble in that relationship from the start when I gave her a copy of my favourite book at that time, JG Ballard's Crash, and she gave it back 2 days later and deemed it to be the most vile crap she'd ever read. To put it respectably, different tastes and sensibilities. Anyway, minus the odd shot fired back and forth here and there for comedic purposes, I wish all my ex's a good day. Whether Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides is a good movie remains to be seen but what is clear even from the outset, she's a phenomenal director of musical sequences. Every time I watch it, I care less for its feminist angle, teenage boredom and its critiques of conservative parenting and more for the scenes of the formidable Josh Hartnett walking up and down the school corridors to Heart's Magic Man. Trip Fontaine was exactly the kind of vibes a young Jacob Kelly wanted to exude after discovering the movie in his sixth form days in an all girl's school. Legend has it I brought a much needed sexiness back to that school but I'll let you be the judge of that.
Considering she was only 28 at the time, there's a lot I can forgive about The Virgin Suicides. Perhaps she wasn't as mature as Orson Welles, Dennis Hopper or my own personal favourite Paul Thomas Anderson (who gave us the actual best film ever made aged 27) but she had talent behind the camera, that much was clear. The conversion from The Virgin Suicides in to Lost In Translation is just perfect career progression. From flawed but one to keep an eye out for to arguably a masterpiece. She displayed a maturity on that one, which she hasn't displayed since. It was a false hope. People make the mistake of thinking the feminism is the strongest aspect of Sofia Coppola's filmmaking, it isn't. The truth is, it's what brings her down. Her greatest weapon is social alienation and father/daughter relationships. Lost In Translation is her least overtly feminist, has all of these elements and is widely considered her masterpiece so there's your proof. On the other hand, Marie Antoinette, her follow up in 2006 is a return to disappointing naivety. There's been a sort of critical revival for Marie over the last few years with some now considering it a masterpiece. An interesting turn of events as I have seen myself go from being on the side of 'its underrated' to 'it's overrated' without my opinions on it not changing. Honestly, Marie Antoinette is a very fun film with a great use of an anachronistic soundtrack. Adam and the Ants Kings of the Wild Frontier is an exceptional song choice and Kirsten Dunst is a fucking star. However, this film could be her weakest study of privilege without power. A middle class family with children of low agency? Tolerable. A photographer's wife disregarded and abandoned in hotels? Fantastic and very personal. An Australian princess? Come on, you're really pushing it, Sofia.
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