Monday Night Movie: The Virgin Suicides

 

Genre:

Drama, Romance

Content Warning:

Suicide

Rating: 

Four out of Five Stars

Buy Link:

https://amzn.to/3cycwGj

Disclosures:

The following is a copy of my review on Amazon for this movie with a few additional statements added.

I will receive a small commission from Amazon for any purchases made through the buy link.

This post contains discussions of suicide.

Ornery Review:

As someone who attempted suicide in my teens, I watched this movie with interest. I was raised Catholic like the female protagonists and became rebellious as a teenager. In fairness to my parents, they were not as ridiculously strict as the parents in this film, but we had a lot of arguments.

My heart broke for Lux, the character played by Kristin Dunst. The boy she trusted abandoned her. He was hell-bent on seducing her, and then when he got what he wanted he dumped her. The same thing happened to me and it was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as pushing me to attempt suicide. 

I really hated Trip for his behavior. When you have sex with someone and then your attitude is "after that it was weird and I didn't care how she got home," you don't have the right to say you loved that person again, ever. You don't treat people you love like that, period. 

Lux was in a vulnerable state. She had been drinking before she and Trip had sex, and then she fell asleep. He left her lying out on the football field alone. Anyone who treats another human being like that is trash. This character really made me angry.

After Trip dumped Lux, she began behaving in a hypersexual fashion, seducing as many willing guys as possible and having sex with them on the roof of the family's house. The film's narrator and his friends watch these liaisons through a telescope, making moronic comments.

What people don't understand is that girls who behave in a hypersexual fashion are reacting to trauma of some kind. Rather than showing compassion, these girls are called unkind names and exploited by men and boys willing to take advantage of them. The other boys were not as awful as Trip but still behaved deplorably acting like the Lisbon girls were prizes to be won rather than troubled human beings who needed a friend.

Girls and women are not objects to be ogled, prizes to be won, pets to be kept, or mysteries to be solved. We are human beings. The film does a decent job of expressing the sometimes extremely painful frustration of being a teenage girl. This is a commendable goal as teenage girls are the demographic whose troubles are least likely to be taken seriously.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Inspire Me Monday #224 + Spread the Kindness #119: Real Cie Reviews: Eighth Grade

This post is a duplicate of my review of this product for Amazon.

4 out of 5 stars

Elsie Fisher does a marvelous job as the insecure, likable Kayla and Josh Hamilton plays his role as the sweet but sometimes irritatingly out-of-touch and overprotective dad perfectly. Kayla's high school mentor Olivia is adorable if a bit clueless. There is the eye-roll-inducing stereotypical pretty mean girl Kennedy, and Kayla's crush Aiden has all the personality of wallpaper paste.

The movie does a nice job of addressing sensitive subject matter such as Kayla's panic attacks. I was a teenager in the late seventies and early eighties, and was unable to discuss my psychological issues with anyone for fear of being placed on a psych ward or dismissed as "seeking attention" or being "overly dramatic." When I read about bipolar disorder (then called manic depression) in my junior year psychology class, I recognized myself in a lot of the symptoms. I approached the subject with the teacher and she told me I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis and I wasn't psychotic. I would not be properly diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40 years old.  If nothing else, movies such as this one approach issues such as panic attacks without pathologizing the person suffering from them.

The movie also does a good job of addressing the pressure on teens, particularly teenage girls, to be sexy and sexually active. Olivia's creepy friend Riley attempts to pressure Kayla into removing her shirt during a game of Truth or Dare when they are alone in his car together, and Kayla's crush Aiden is rumored to have broken up with a previous girlfriend because she wouldn't send him nude photos.

The movie is appropriate for teenagers. Kayla is a relatable character, an ordinary and likable if socially awkward young woman. I found myself thinking that it was a shame for her to waste any time or energy on a shallow, self-absorbed twit like Kennedy or a limp dishrag like Aiden. 

Teens struggling with feeling like they don't fit in and those of us who used to be (and sometimes still are) the odd one out will feel a kinship with Kayla and be proud of her as she learns to stand up for herself.

~Cie~

Also sharing to the Spread the Kindness blog hop on Tuesday April 23, 2019.