Dreamy, hazy images juxtaposed with a dreary, melancholy tale, Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut isn’t self-contradictory but rather entirely built on discrepancies. This is most acutely felt in how the story is told – 25 years after the main event happens (spoiler: there’s suicides) from the memories of male classmates. This creates an aura of intangibility around the main Lisbon sisters – never do we learn their thoughts or feelings, we can only guess at why they committed suicide so many years ago. But this, too, is a lie. It’s obvious what led the girls to end them all. We’re shown time and time again that their parents are oppressive and hyper-controlling, never letting them go out, punishing them severely for any broken rules. And when there are physical prisons containing you, all you’re left with is your mind. But this is no respite for their living conditions –  because while the Lisbon sisters are loved for their beauty in their high school, they have never, ever been loved in all their complexities; the closest that one of them has ever gotten to a genuine connection has only led her to laying alone in the misty grass of the football field in the twilight hours of the day. Not only are they trapped in the prison of religious Midwestern suburbia, the Lisbon sisters believe they are only lovable in their sexuality. And when you’re trapped in inescapable mental and physical prisons, when the only people who talk to you have ulterior, sexual motivations, and your real, complex emotions are all treated as mere teenage angst, it becomes clear how the eponymous event came to be. But this is only part of what makes The Virgin Suicides so great – not just about the mental duress of living in a “perfect” middle class Christian family, it also explores the concept of the male and female gaze, media sensationalism, and the insensitivity of adults to the teenage condition (and probably so, so much more that I missed on my first viewing). All in all, The Virgin Suicides is a excellent film, but as a directorial debut? It’s absolutely astounding.