Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides 4K restoration is heading our way

STUDIOCANAL has announced the release of a 4K restoration of Sofia Coppola’s stunning directorial debut The Virgin Suicides on Blu-ray, DVD and, for the first time in the UK, on 4K UHD and Digital from 13 March.

Featuring a spellbinding performance from Kirsten Dunst (The Power of The Dog, Melancholia), with mesmeric cinematography from Ed Lachman (Carol, Far From Heaven) and a cult soundtrack by French duo Air, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES remains a coming-of-age classic.

In a quiet, conservative American town in the 1970s, Cecilia Lisbon, just 13, attempts suicide. She is one of five beautiful teenage sisters and this incident begins to unravel the lives of the entire family. The story is told from the point of view of the neighbourhood boys who are obsessed with these enigmatic sisters and draws its dark humour from the fabric of teenage life.  Little by little, the family begins to shut itself off from friends and neighbours and the girls are soon forbidden to go out.  As the situation spirals downward, the boys plot to rescue the girls.

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES was based on the 1993 best-selling novel of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides, a book which Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth had recommended to Sofia Coppola and which immediately resonated with her, as she explains: “I really didn’t know I wanted to be a director until I read ‘The Virgin Suicides’ and saw so clearly how it had to be done.  I was really motivated to make something sensitive and accurate to a teenage girl. I immediately saw the central story as being about what distance and time and memory do to you, and about the extraordinary power of the unfathomable.”  

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The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999 and marked the beginning of a long friendship and working relationship between Sofia Coppola (29 years old at the time) and star Kirsten Dunst (16 years old at the time), whom she would go on to cast as the lead in several of her films including Marie Antoinette and The Beguiled.  Kirsten Dunst’s performance as the attainable yet unattainable eldest sister Lux, was praised by critics and became her transitional coming-of-age screen role. The film also boasts compelling performances from Kathleen Turner (Peggy Sue Got Married), James Woods (Vampires) and Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down).

French electronic music duo Air, one of Sofia Coppola’s favourite bands, composed the original music score for the film, brilliantly evoking the dreamlike melancholy of suburban adolescence. It was their first soundtrack and highly acclaimed by critics, being considered as one of the best film scores ever recorded.

Prior to her directorial feature debut, Sofia Coppola had written and directed the short film Lick The Star (1998).  After THE VIRGIN SUICIDES she went on to make more acclaimed films including Lost in Translation for which she was the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing in 2003. With Somewhere, in 2010, she became the first American woman to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

STUDIOCANAL owns one of the largest film libraries in the world, boasting nearly 7000 titles from 60 countries. Spanning 100 years of film history. 20 million euros has been invested into the restoration of 700 classic films over the past 5 years.

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES is a 4K restoration from Criterion, approved by director Sofia Coppola and supervised by cinematographer Ed Lachman.

Special Features:

• Soundtrack by Air: a new interview with JB Dunckel & Nicolas Godin
• Revisiting “The Virgin Suicides” (2018)
• In Conversation with Jeffrey Eugenides (2018)
• Making “The Virgin Suicides” (1998)
• Lick The Star short film (1998)