The Atlantic

Why <em>The Virgin Suicides</em> Is Still So Resonant Today

Sofia Coppola’s debut film, now released in a Criterion Collection edition, is a staggering portrayal of the mysteries of teenage angst.
Source: Paramount Classics

It’s somewhat rare that a filmmaker’s first movie is their best, especially when they go on to have an illustrious career. But that might just be the case for Sofia Coppola: The Virgin Suicides, released this week in a new Criterion Collection edition, was such a confident debut in 2000 that it immediately announced her as a generational talent, a status she cemented with her Oscar-winning follow-up, Lost in Translation. But , adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides’s 1993 novel, remains the richer, more enduring work, a poetic meditation on the angst of teenagehood that’s at once deadly and dreamy.

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