0:09

Hello, you, and welcome to You

0:11

Are Good at Feelings podcast about

0:13

movies. Today we are talking about

0:15

the Virgin Suicides and we are

0:17

talking about the Virgin Suicides with

0:19

Suze Kempner. I am

0:21

one of your hosts, Alex Steed, and

0:23

I will soon be joined by my

0:25

marvelous co-host, Sarah Marshall. The

0:28

Virgin Suicides is a 1999 American

0:30

psychological romantic drama film written and

0:32

directed by Sophia Coppola in her

0:35

feature directorial debut. It stars James

0:37

Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst, A.J.

0:39

Cook, Josh Harnett, Scott Glenn, and

0:42

more. It is based

0:44

on the Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. And

0:48

if you want to hear a great conversation about

0:50

the book, which I definitely listened to

0:52

in preparation for this episode, listen to

0:54

our great friend Caroline O'Donohue talk about

0:56

the book over on sentimental

0:59

garbage. Great chat, great chat. Loved it,

1:01

loved it, loved it. Thought about that

1:03

chat for days afterward. Suze

1:05

Kempner is an English stand-up comedian,

1:08

actress, and singer. She's

1:11

great. We have had Suze on before

1:13

where we talked about another Kirsten Dunst movie. We

1:15

talked about Drop dead Gorgeous. And

1:17

I am just a huge fan of Suze.

1:19

Glad that she's back. Hope that she comes

1:22

back in the future as well. Hope that

1:24

Suze just keeps coming back. We love her.

1:26

She's also a Doom in Doctor

1:29

Who's Doomsday, which is, this

1:32

is Doctor Who royalty

1:35

on our very show. To

1:37

those of you who are new to You Are

1:39

Good, a feelings podcast about movies, the

1:41

show operates the way the title suggests.

1:44

We are not film critics. We

1:47

watch movies and we say, here's

1:49

what this makes me think about. Here's

1:51

what this makes me feel. And here's how I

1:54

feel about those feelings. That's what we're doing here.

1:56

And it's always a fun time, or at least

1:58

a thoughtful time. a little bit

2:00

of both, fun and thoughtful. So thank you

2:03

so much for being here, new folks. And

2:05

I'm always happy to reintroduce the concept to

2:07

people who've been listening for a very long

2:09

time. How are you doing? What's going on

2:11

in your world? How are you feeling? What

2:14

are you thinking about? I live in Los

2:16

Angeles part-time. I live in the Central

2:18

Valley of California, the other part of the

2:20

time. But I'm making the full move

2:22

this week. So my brain is, so many

2:25

members of the You Are Good team right

2:27

now are all in the process. Moving

2:30

in our brains are cooked. So

2:33

thank you for bearing with

2:35

me as my rickety brain

2:38

does its, does

2:42

this, does exactly what it's

2:45

having right now. I would

2:47

love to make some suggestions to you about

2:49

like what to do or

2:51

read or consider. But all I've been doing

2:53

lately is watching reruns of Gossip Girl. Nope,

2:56

not even that, see, there it goes again.

2:58

But all I've been doing lately is watching

3:00

the OC. So

3:03

I could recommend that if that's your

3:05

cup of tea. Actually, I did not know it

3:08

would be my cup of tea. And I was

3:10

a little hesitant up front because I

3:12

was like, this is more polite than

3:14

Gossip Girl. So I don't know how I

3:16

feel about it. But it is great.

3:20

Love it, Adam Brady, killing it. Anyway, let

3:22

us know how you're doing. We're

3:24

at You Are Good or You Are Good

3:27

pod on social media, depending on whatever channel

3:29

you're using or you're on. You can find

3:31

us there. And don't forget that you,

3:33

my friend, are good. Thank

3:36

you so much for being here. We're so glad to have you.

3:39

You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies

3:41

is made possible with In By Your Support.

3:43

Thanks so much to everyone who supports us

3:46

on Patreon and Apple podcast subscriptions. You've got

3:48

bonus episodes in exchange for that support. We

3:51

truly appreciate you. We truly could

3:53

not do this without you. We have

3:56

all sorts of bonus content coming out

3:58

in the next month. and you

4:01

can experience it, you can consume it, you can

4:04

put it in your ears by subscribing

4:06

if you're not doing that already. And in

4:08

doing so, you help make the show possible

4:11

because we can't do it

4:13

without your support. A few content

4:15

warnings for this episode. Yes, we talk

4:17

about suicide in our conversation about the

4:19

Virgin Suicides. It comes up a lot

4:22

in the movie. It's a huge plot

4:24

point regularly throughout the movie. And

4:27

we also talk about disordered eating. So

4:29

please know about those two content warnings.

4:31

And this will be a heavy episode

4:33

overall, because we talk about all sorts

4:36

of things that are difficult to deal

4:38

with in adolescence. And you know, hey,

4:40

if we're being honest, difficult to deal

4:42

with now. If you

4:45

are a supporter of ceasefire, as I

4:47

am, please look up actions to get

4:49

involved in in your neighborhood or your

4:51

city or wherever. I'm sure you can

4:54

find some if you haven't participated already.

4:56

And if you were looking for a way

4:59

to support materially right now, please get in

5:01

touch with the folks at Palestine Children's Relief

5:03

Fund. We will have a link to them

5:05

and their services in the show notes. All

5:08

right, I think that's it

5:10

for this introduction, this meandering introduction

5:12

to this week's episode of You

5:14

Are Good at Feeling Spied Cast, about movies.

5:16

We appreciate you again. It's so true. So

5:19

glad that we're able to do this. And we're only able

5:22

to do this because you keep showing up for it. So

5:24

thank you for continuing to show up for it. We

5:28

are grateful. All right, let's

5:31

get into it. Let's talk about the

5:33

Virgin Suicides with Sue Keppner. Hello,

5:43

Sarah Marshall. Hello,

5:46

Alex Seed. How

5:48

does one say hello in

5:51

in Virgin Suicide? In the

5:53

70s. We just

5:55

were we were saying hello even back then, if

5:57

you can believe it. Have

6:00

you, I don't

6:02

even know, I don't even know how to engage.

6:04

This is such a unique movie. I don't even

6:07

know how to engage it through pithy banter. Oh,

6:09

yeah, there's no pith. Here's

6:11

some pithiness that you can do though.

6:13

Have you ever watched a movie directed

6:16

by the teenage girl whose dad forced her

6:18

to be in his stupid movie and everyone

6:20

blamed her as if she had written the

6:22

goddamn thing and then she grew

6:24

up and she made her own movie about

6:27

what it's like to be a teenage girl. You

6:29

seen that one? You know

6:31

what, I have seen that one. I only recently

6:33

realized and I at this point don't know where

6:35

facts live and if the ones

6:38

that I have are the true ones but is

6:40

it true? Yes. That Winona Ryder

6:42

was who he was trying to have in The

6:44

Godfather 3? No, she was originally going

6:46

to do it and then she had to drop out because,

6:49

you know, the life of Winona Ryder I

6:51

think was too overwhelming to allow for her

6:53

to be in The Godfather part 3 which

6:56

by the way, that movie

6:58

had problems no matter who placed that

7:00

part but we digress. I

7:02

mean, we got this as a result of

7:04

how things went down and I'm grateful for that. We

7:06

could have gotten – you don't have to be in

7:08

your dad's terrible movie to direct a good movie when

7:10

you grow up. Well,

7:14

we watched The Virgin Suicides and

7:17

we watched it because we are

7:19

joined by the fabulous Suze Kemner.

7:21

Suze, hello. Hello, thank you. Hello.

7:24

Thank you so much for coming back.

7:26

Thank you so much for having me

7:28

and thank you for allowing me to

7:30

say my favourite bit about the Suze

7:33

Copla Starring in Godfather 3 story which

7:35

is the person who pulled Francis

7:37

Ford Copla days before filming

7:39

was supposed to start was

7:42

Winona Ryder's elderly boyfriend Johnny

7:44

Depp. So it's nice

7:47

that he was looking out for her and he

7:49

said she can't do the movie. She's not well, she

7:51

can't do the movie. Now she probably wasn't well but

7:53

I do blame him. Yeah,

7:56

I like that. I think he

7:58

did it. I love that. forever.

8:01

Her elderly boyfriend. That's fantastic. Oh.

8:05

Sue, there were a

8:08

bunch of options about movies that you could bring to us.

8:10

What put the Virgin Suicides at the top of your list?

8:13

I love your podcast. And it always

8:16

seems to hit me when you revisit a film

8:18

that I saw between the ages of about 13

8:20

and 17. And

8:23

I saw Virgin Suicides when I

8:25

was 14 at the cinema in 99. And

8:29

when they said, I remember watching it and when they said,

8:31

they say all the ages of the sisters and they say,

8:33

Lux was 14. I was like, I'm 14. I'm

8:36

just like Kirsten Dunst in Virgin Suicides.

8:39

And it's a funny one. It really stuck with me

8:42

and I had the VHF of it. And then I

8:44

had the DVD of it. I had the soundtrack from

8:46

it. And it's a film that as I

8:48

get older, ages with me. And

8:51

I think all my favorite films from that era

8:53

are films that I can revisit now and go,

8:55

yeah, it's just as good. It's just I'm older now. I

9:00

haven't seen this since then. And

9:02

then I lived with this movie

9:04

afterward in the form and shape

9:06

of the air soundtrack for years.

9:10

Or like with air, every time I listened to air,

9:12

air had a big moment after this came out for

9:14

a couple of years. And every time I listened to

9:16

them, I associated it with the movie. And

9:19

I knew it was special, but I don't

9:21

think I understood how it was special. And

9:23

it was really tremendous watching it this go

9:25

and knowing that I'm going to have the

9:27

opportunity to talk with you all about it

9:29

because this does so many fascinating

9:32

things. Like for a movie about five

9:34

girls, it's

9:37

about a bunch of boys' memories

9:40

of five girls, which is a really fascinating

9:42

take. There's all sorts of things that happened

9:44

that I'm thrilled about. Sarah, what was your

9:46

relationship with this? What has your relationship with

9:49

this been? Oh, yeah. I

9:51

mean, so I was also a teenage,

9:53

tweenage girl at the turn of the

9:55

millennium. And

9:57

I don't really know when if I

9:59

read the book or saw the movie first, they're

10:01

both kind of knitted together for me

10:04

and also like around the age of 14.

10:07

But this movie was on IFC in 2002 a lot which is

10:09

a big marker whether I

10:13

grew up watching something and it was formative for me. And

10:16

I remember reading the book a few

10:18

times in high school and at

10:21

least at the time it felt like one of the

10:23

only things that allowed for

10:26

the reality that it was just horrible

10:28

to be an adolescent girl and

10:31

not necessarily understanding all the reasons why

10:33

but just kind of like allowing space

10:35

for that because

10:37

there are even sort of stuff in the

10:39

positive realm that was meant for girls at

10:42

the time was I think often trying to

10:44

be like it's great, you just got to

10:46

work hard and live to your potential and

10:48

believe in yourself and wow your life is going

10:50

to be nice and it's like what if you're

10:52

just trying to survive this hormonal

10:55

storm and the best you

10:57

can do is just kind of live through it and

10:59

you need someone to acknowledge

11:02

that surviving that period of your life

11:04

can be extremely difficult or else it

11:06

makes you feel even crazier

11:08

than usual. And that's what

11:10

I think of when I think of the

11:12

book by Jeffrey Gennady's and the

11:14

movie by Sofia Coppola. Sarah,

11:17

are you in a place where you're able

11:19

to walk us through the dream? Oh,

11:22

sure. I mean, so basically this is in

11:25

the book it's narrated by a collective

11:27

we which is the first time I had

11:30

ever seen that narrative device where you have

11:33

like the narrator is always referring to we and

11:35

two different boys in this group of neighborhood boys

11:37

who are obsessed with the

11:39

Lisbon sisters but you never get

11:41

an individual speaking for himself.

11:44

It's just sort of a pack

11:47

of teenage boys and

11:50

basically it's a story of how

11:52

these neighborhood boys became fixated on

11:54

this family with two strict parents

11:57

and five sisters each more beautiful.

11:59

beautiful than the last, the

12:02

second to youngest being Kirsten Dunst,

12:04

whose character's name is Lex Lisbon.

12:08

And how starting with the

12:10

youngest sister Cecilia who attempts

12:13

suicide and then reattempts it

12:15

and dies at a

12:17

party that her parents have thrown for her,

12:20

the parents clamp down on the

12:23

girl's ability to interact with the world

12:25

more and more, Josh Hartnett

12:28

gets involved

12:30

and... There's

12:33

a whole phase of the cinema history where just

12:35

Josh Hartnett would get involved. Yeah, he just shows

12:37

up, he's got some puka shells on and you're

12:40

like okay, you know, and it's these

12:42

neighborhood boys watching these girls from

12:44

afar trying to piece together their

12:47

lives and having actually almost

12:50

no direct interaction with them. And

12:52

then ending in a scene where the boys

12:54

come over, they're kind of flirting with the

12:56

idea of let's get on the road, let's

12:58

run away and then the girls

13:01

all choose that moment to all

13:04

die by suicide together. And

13:06

it's just, it really appears in a

13:09

way very well with The Iron

13:11

Claw because it's just about the

13:13

un-survivability of girlhood as these girls

13:15

know it. And it

13:17

also kind of as a film

13:20

as I'm pretty sure

13:22

the first feature film by Sofia

13:24

Coppola, it's you know,

13:26

the teenage girls that I grew up with and

13:28

was one of and then kind of have met

13:30

in adulthood who are from the same age group,

13:32

like there's a real affinity for this movie and

13:35

the way that I think it sort of has

13:38

found this very beautiful melancholy

13:40

aesthetic to I think

13:42

make it bearable for us to get as

13:45

deep into this story as we have

13:47

to go. How was it revisiting, Suze?

13:50

I don't think I've seen it in over

13:53

a decade, maybe like 15 years. And

13:56

the thing that struck me the most

13:58

was I used to... See

14:00

Kathleen Turner's character. She's the mother weirdly

14:04

the villain of the piece because

14:07

I guess I didn't have the cinematic

14:10

language to Realize

14:12

that there is nuance that everything has to have

14:14

a villain and I watched this time and found

14:16

her performance really heartbreaking

14:19

Like watching it when oh, no, she

14:21

she is doing her best. It's bad But

14:24

she's got no one to talk to one

14:27

of her daughters has committed suicide

14:29

and She can't talk

14:31

to her husband because the priest comes around to

14:33

visit and the husband only wants to talk about

14:35

the here's a baseball game on the TV she

14:37

has no one that she could talk to and

14:40

Wouldn't I guess even if she

14:42

felt she could because who

14:45

knows what she was brought up with so I watched

14:47

it went Oh, no Had

14:49

you all wrong Kathleen Turner? Yeah,

14:52

it's there's something both revelatory

14:54

and distressing about Watching these movies that you

14:57

grew up with and realizing that you're closer

14:59

in age to the parents and have more

15:01

of you're like Emphasizing with them and understanding

15:03

them and you're like, oh no A

15:08

meme keeps going around Emphasizing that

15:11

Jennifer Coolidge character stifflers mom was

15:13

38 years old and

15:15

it really Undoes me every

15:17

time I see it Especially because who's

15:20

the guy who played simpler Shawn

15:22

Michael Patrick Thomas Flannery? In

15:34

looked every year of it The

15:38

thing that really got me and

15:40

I and I what I rarely do is

15:43

do anything beyond just watch the movie But

15:45

I listened to a couple of podcasts about

15:47

this one And there was a podcast called

15:49

beyond the screenplay where they talk about this

15:51

movie and there were four hosts So my

15:53

likelihood of being able to nail down whose

15:55

quote this was is zero But

15:57

they said they said this thing that really

16:00

struck me that really also kind of articulates

16:02

what has struck me about Sofia Coppola

16:04

throughout her entire career which is if

16:07

film is a language auteurs have their

16:09

own dialect and that really

16:11

like I was like, oh like that you

16:13

know and that's a thing that like,

16:15

you know, the more you watch stuff but like

16:17

you don't necessarily if you're unless you're consciously going

16:19

like okay, like what is the

16:22

flavor of this person's movies, you know

16:24

hers are always just like hanging

16:26

around in a dream like that's kind of what

16:28

it feels like in one way or another to me and I

16:31

have not read the Eugenides book

16:33

So I can't draw from that

16:36

But what this movie does at

16:39

least will presumably with the text

16:41

that it's provided It feels so

16:43

timely because it's telling the story

16:45

of this the tragedy that you

16:48

know befalls these girls

16:51

It seems like the girls are the main

16:53

characters of the movie or of the story

16:55

and they kind of are the main characters

16:57

are the story but like there's a real

16:59

mystery about who they are what drove them

17:01

why they did what they did and really,

17:05

it's about these girls through the

17:07

lens of like everyone around them

17:09

who either like had

17:11

some take on them or objectified them

17:13

or whatever and we're getting these pieces

17:15

of people's memory and Then

17:18

we have these guys who are essentially

17:20

and this I understand this to

17:22

be more from the book But we get these

17:24

hints in the movie these guys who are essentially

17:26

like Collectors of memories

17:29

and ephemera of these women

17:31

So it feels super true crimey in

17:33

the way that like we

17:35

have been in the you know Maybe decade

17:37

of all true crime everything I

17:39

found it fascinating and then also just like all of

17:41

these choices on copal

17:43

is part that required the confidence

17:46

of being Sophia Coppola, which

17:48

is like Sometimes it's an

17:50

interview like it's a documentary and sometimes

17:52

it's a movie where we're like observing

17:54

people like you would in a movie

17:56

and Sometimes we're like its confidence and

17:59

its constant shimmy in perspective

18:01

really took me by surprise.

18:04

But yeah, what do you make of

18:06

the like? It seems like the narrator,

18:08

the collective narrator, as we know them,

18:10

they don't have a life outside of

18:12

being obsessed with the story of their

18:14

childhood, which is really fascinating. Well,

18:16

it's like we kind of know them

18:18

only through this. And

18:21

it's the sort of accidental

18:23

self-portrait that you get. I

18:25

actually, I have Norman Mailer's

18:27

Marilyn in front of me, which feels

18:29

pretty apropos. Let me read you the

18:31

first paragraph of Norman Mailer's book about

18:34

Marilyn Monroe. Why not, Norman?

18:37

Why not? Okay, you ready?

18:39

I am. So we

18:41

think of Marilyn, who was every man's love

18:43

affair with America. Marilyn Monroe, who was

18:45

blonde and beautiful and had a sweet

18:47

little rinky dink of a voice and

18:49

all the cleanliness of all the clean

18:52

American backyards. She was our angel, the

18:54

sweet angel of sex. And the

18:56

sugar of sex came out from her like a resonance

18:58

of sound and the clearest grain of a violin. Across

19:01

five continents, the men who knew the most about

19:03

love would covet her. And the

19:05

classical pimples of the adolescent working his

19:08

first gas pump would also pump

19:10

for her. Since Marilyn was deliverance,

19:12

a very strativarius of sex, so

19:15

gorgeous, forgiving, humorous, compliant and tender

19:17

that even the most mediocre musician

19:19

would relax his lack of art

19:22

and the dissolving magic of her

19:24

violin. That's not about her, that's

19:26

about him. Yeah, yeah,

19:28

yeah. He really took the day off after writing that,

19:30

didn't he? Well,

19:35

I'm just, and, and, Susan, curious about, because

19:37

it's funny to think of like, as

19:40

girls the same age as

19:42

the girls in this movie, watching

19:45

a movie that's so much about

19:47

like simultaneously being obsessed with the

19:49

interiority of these teenage girls

19:51

and wanting to know what's going on inside

19:53

of their lives, but also being obsessed with

19:56

surveilling them essentially, which is the very thing

19:58

that makes it feel impossible for us to

20:00

exist as people in a way. I mean,

20:03

what was that like for you to encounter

20:05

at that same age? Yeah, I

20:07

had this. I mean, sure, I'm

20:09

not alone in this, but I

20:11

remember being that age and just

20:13

constantly sort of willing myself

20:15

to be more attractive to

20:17

boys my age, which

20:19

I'm glad I

20:21

don't do that anymore. But I remember

20:23

that feeling and I remember watching that

20:25

film and being extremely envious of

20:27

these girls because I went, oh, look at them. They're

20:30

just constantly being stared at by every guy in their

20:32

school who just wants to find out everything about them.

20:34

How can I be more like that? I mean, watch

20:36

it at 39. I'm like, oh, they're

20:38

constantly being watched by every boy in their school

20:41

who are constantly just trying to get in their

20:43

heads. And actually would have no

20:45

interest in what was really going

20:47

on in their heads. Because what we're

20:49

watching, how I see it is we're watching

20:51

their memory of what these girls were like, even

20:54

with a documentary style footage, we're watching their

20:57

memories. And how did they

20:59

know that Lux wrote Tripp's

21:01

name on her underwear? They've heard

21:04

it from Cecilia's diary that she did that with

21:06

a garbage man or something. She gets

21:08

obsessed with a garbage man, writing

21:11

his name on her underwear. And Cecilia's

21:13

written about that in their diary, which they've

21:16

stolen after she dies. And they say,

21:18

oh, she did that. So they've decided that she

21:20

also wrote Tripp's name on her underwear. Yeah,

21:23

I was fascinated with the 25 year

21:25

difference of me seeing it at

21:27

their age and watching it again

21:29

when I'm travelling to Turner's age.

21:32

Or Jennifer Coolidge's age and realizing, oh

21:34

yeah, no, the constant male gaze on

21:36

them was very deliberate. And that's really

21:38

smart of Peter Coppola, who I guess

21:40

knew a thing or two about that

21:43

having been blamed, as you say,

21:46

for the failure of The Godfather 3

21:48

by being so bad and nepo and

21:50

very ugly. There's loads of reviews saying like,

21:52

well, she's too ugly to be

21:54

in this film. And I think it's

21:56

horrendous. How does anyone deal with that at any age,

21:59

let alone at age? It's wild. She's

22:02

too ugly to be believable as

22:04

Al Pacino's daughter? Al

22:09

Pacino feels like some magic happened where people give

22:11

him, I mean I understand all of the

22:13

sort of sexist implications of this, but I feel

22:15

like people just remember 1972 Al Pacino and

22:19

project it onto him no matter what is

22:21

happening. Or they remember Al Pacino and Jack

22:23

and Jill. It's one of the two. It

22:26

really depends a lot on birth year. Yeah,

22:33

we currently, it's like that once every

22:35

three years everyone discovers again the Don

22:37

Caccino advert and goes, calm down, this is this,

22:39

and then it has to be explained that that's

22:41

Jack and Jill. Oh my God. You

22:44

know, it's a lesson that out of

22:48

even the worst conceived and

22:50

executed film can yield a

22:52

pearl of true something, true

22:54

camp I guess. Yeah. So

22:57

right, and I remember watching Sofia

22:59

Coppola win, I believe best

23:02

director for Lost in Translation. No, she

23:04

wouldn't. Or did she? I don't even

23:06

remember. Maybe not because I

23:08

think Catherine Bigelow was the first woman to

23:10

win best director in like 2008 because

23:14

women famously can't direct because we

23:16

ovulate to quote Kevin Spacey in

23:18

Swimming with Cars. But

23:21

you know, to watch her have a career at a

23:23

time when really the received wisdom

23:25

was that again, women can't direct

23:28

unless they're Penny Marshall because Catherine

23:30

Bigelow hadn't yet proved cultural relevance

23:32

by doing something other than sci-fi

23:34

I think and blue steel. And

23:38

it felt so radical to me as

23:40

a teenage girl to watch a woman

23:42

who, you know, she was in vogue

23:44

and she was glamorous and she had,

23:46

there's like this vogue story about her

23:48

in the early 2000s that I committed

23:50

to memory that talked about Angelica Houston

23:52

telling her as a teenager that she

23:54

had grown into her nose. And I

23:56

was like, Oh my God, Sunday, I'm

23:59

going to grow into my nose. my nose just

24:01

like to see a copula. I'm still waiting.

24:04

Maybe when we're dead. Yeah. Sometimes

24:08

your face just needs some time to

24:10

catch up with the rest

24:12

of your face. But there's

24:15

something so fascinating to me about her making

24:17

this movie about the surveillance of

24:20

teenage girls. Certainly, she's,

24:22

like you just said, knowing more

24:24

than even most women about what

24:26

that's like, and that there's

24:28

kind of this implicit radical statement by

24:30

being someone directing a movie who's really

24:33

fits any category other than a straight,

24:35

cis, white man, and saying

24:37

that you have interiority that's worth exploring, that

24:39

there's something inside of you, and you can

24:41

bring that to your characters. Sarah,

24:45

just so you know, she did win an

24:47

Oscar, but it was for adapted screenplay. Screenplay?

24:49

OK, yeah. So that lost in translation. Yeah.

24:52

I am interested and kind of sad that I

24:55

haven't read the book. The closest I got, I

24:57

was telling this Sarah beforehand, was listening to the

24:59

sentimental garbage episode about the book. You

25:02

should read it. I should read it, actually,

25:04

shouldn't I? Based on the conversation that they,

25:07

and based on your encouragement to do so,

25:09

I really want to, because

25:11

the conversation that was had was about,

25:14

is this book brilliant

25:16

in how it treats and understands

25:18

the objectification of these girls, particularly

25:21

from at this time like a young male

25:23

writer? Or is it creepy?

25:26

And it lands on its brilliance

25:28

is kind of in some of its creepiness,

25:30

but its creepiness doesn't seem like that's where

25:32

it's ultimately coming from. But

25:35

yeah, there was so much I

25:38

enjoy about the fact that the

25:40

ultimate mystery that we have is

25:42

no one knows these girls. There's

25:46

this fascinating unknowability

25:50

where we spend all of this time looking

25:52

at them, and

25:54

no time drawing any conclusions. We

25:56

don't know why they all decide

25:58

to take their, can sort of put pieces

26:01

together maybe a little bit, but we don't know why they

26:03

decide to take their lives in the way that they do.

26:05

We don't know about the dynamic of their

26:08

relationship, which makes it possible to come up

26:10

with the pact that they clearly come up

26:12

with. We just know

26:15

them from afar and to Sarah's

26:17

Norman Miller point, you know,

26:19

we see all of the things that they reflect

26:21

in the people around them who are looking at

26:24

them. We certainly get this

26:26

really interesting, what, god damn, I should

26:28

remember his name, it's so iconic. What

26:30

is Josh Hartnett's name in the movie?

26:32

Tripp Fontaine. We

26:35

do know, I mean, we do get

26:37

bits of like, even the

26:39

plot points that kind of seem to

26:42

send the girls in one direction or

26:44

another about what happens to them. Like

26:46

Tripp Fontaine becomes obsessed

26:48

with Lux, quote, gets

26:51

Lux and then immediately discards

26:53

her because it was about

26:55

obsession and not about her actuality. And then

26:57

we see kind of her life and interest

26:59

shift. But it

27:01

seems brilliant in its ability

27:03

to convey the fact

27:06

that we leave the

27:08

movie knowing nothing more

27:10

about their interiority than we came into the movie.

27:12

And you know, it's

27:15

in this is a thing that Caroline says in the

27:17

sentimental garbage office is like, this is ultimately a horror.

27:20

Like this is a horror story. That's

27:22

why they got those Midsommar type outfit. They're

27:26

homecoming dresses. Precious ghost girls.

27:31

Yes, certainly the treatment of them, they leave a

27:33

note for these boys who keep watching them

27:35

with binoculars and a telescope at night, they

27:37

leave a note saying come to the house

27:39

at midnight. And when the boys come to

27:41

the house, Lux lets them in and says

27:43

I'll get my sisters knowing that they're all

27:45

dead in different rooms in the house. And

27:47

then she goes and takes her own life.

27:50

And the boys discover the girls one

27:52

by one and it is just like a

27:54

horror. Yeah, it really really is, you

27:56

know, and like the fact that the

27:59

motivation is all ultimately potentially

28:02

how we saw them be treated the entire

28:04

movie or how we saw

28:06

again, no one got it. No one got

28:08

anywhere closer into knowing who they were than

28:10

when we started. And we

28:12

have that scene obviously near the beginning of

28:15

the movie where what is the youngest girl's

28:17

name? Cecilia. Where Cecilia has

28:19

attempted and then goes

28:21

to see Danny DeVito, psychologist

28:24

at large, who suggests that

28:26

the girls are allowed to like hang out

28:28

with more boys and so the parents facilitate

28:30

this party with them and the neighborhood

28:33

boys. And the thing that kind of

28:35

pushes her to try and ultimately die

28:37

the second time is just seeing how

28:39

these boys end up treating this kid

28:42

in their neighborhood who I think may

28:44

have Down syndrome. And

28:46

she's ultimately sort of

28:48

like moved and gutted and excuses herself

28:51

in that way that like, I've

28:53

been in a number of social events and

28:56

seen the dynamic and been like, I can't do this

28:58

anymore. I need

29:00

to get the fuck out of here. And

29:03

then, you know, you just go, if you can

29:05

emotionally regulate slightly more, you just go start doing

29:07

a stranger's dishes. Like

29:13

literally true. I had

29:18

one relationship with my entire dynamic with

29:20

the partner's parents was just like I

29:22

cleaned their kitchen so many times just

29:24

to get out. Mm

29:27

hmm. Well, lasagna is

29:30

gonna be kicked

29:32

on time to head at that with the

29:34

wire brush. Gonna

29:36

leave you to it. Yeah. And there is I

29:39

mean, it feels in a way like a microcosm.

29:41

I mean, there's a sort of, you

29:44

know, I've just finished recording the Britney

29:46

Spears book club with Eve Lindley for

29:48

you wrong about. So I'm very deep

29:50

in Britney headspace. But it

29:52

feels like there is a sort of pop star

29:54

is the political to American girlhood where we identify

29:57

so much with these pop stars, I think.

30:00

and watching them fall from

30:02

grace in a way that we as the public

30:04

are often kind of orchestrating, or at least gently

30:07

helping along, the way you might sort

30:09

of help along an already unraveling sweater.

30:12

I think partly because we see ourselves

30:14

in them and vice versa, and

30:16

it feels like girls being surveilled

30:18

by boys in their neighborhood are

30:20

just existing on a different scale

30:22

than someone being surveilled by the

30:24

world. It's just about scale. And

30:27

the more you get stirred out, the more the

30:30

reality of you sort of received. Yeah,

30:33

that's fascinating. Yeah, we never see

30:35

them look uncomfortable

30:37

at being stirred up, but again,

30:39

that goes from this whole

30:41

movie takes place from the point of view

30:44

of these boys and old men. Who

30:46

say at the beginning, don't they, every time we get together at

30:49

some corporate away trip, we'll end up

30:51

talking about the Lisbon sisters again. Like,

30:53

wow, it is very true crime. Why

30:55

true crime now? It's

30:58

always been there. Turns out it's not just the

31:00

domain of white women. I

31:03

also, I feel like, you know, this

31:05

is a movie about teenage girls, as we've said two

31:08

or 300 times already. Coming

31:10

at a time when the idea

31:13

that teenage girls were worth serious thought or aesthetics,

31:15

I think was at kind of an all time

31:17

low, the turn of the millennium was not a

31:19

great moment for girl art.

31:22

And yeah, I guess in terms

31:24

of style and images, I'm curious for both

31:26

of you kind of revisiting this

31:28

for the first time in a long time, myself

31:31

as well, if there are kind of images

31:33

or moments that stuck with you through the

31:35

years, you know, why do you think on

31:38

a style level that this movie, because a

31:40

lot of movies have style, sometimes some movies

31:42

have too much style or style in the

31:44

wrong place, but I think this is really

31:48

a case of form meeting function. And I

31:50

wonder about how that's worked for you both.

31:53

It's very authentic as far as

31:55

I can tell watching, it

31:57

never feels like the sort of

31:59

tumbling. was

32:02

it? It was set in 1976, isn't it? And

32:04

the film came out in 1999, so it's the

32:06

pre-Tumbler payday. But it never

32:09

feels like in the way that Adrian

32:13

Lin's Lolita, I think it's from around this

32:15

time as well, and that always

32:17

feels very inauthentic with

32:19

her clothing. It always feels like this

32:22

is what a late 90s girl dressing

32:24

up as a Lolita type in

32:26

the 40s would be, whereas this feels

32:28

like films I've seen from the 70s. They feel

32:30

like they're dressed like that. It feels like their

32:32

hair is like that. It's not too perfect. And

32:34

it's funny watching it today

32:37

with now, Kirsten Dunst doesn't have

32:39

perfect veneer teeth. I don't think

32:41

we'd see that on screen now

32:43

if we were a teenager in a movie

32:45

like this. Fucking everybody has veneers now. It's

32:48

too much. They do! Veneers have become

32:50

too available. Yes, yeah. And I looked

32:52

up how much they are, not because

32:54

I want them, but because everyone's got

32:56

them. And I can't believe all my

32:58

friends are so rich. I

33:01

couldn't get them if I wanted them. It's

33:03

interesting because the thing that I did pick

33:05

up in that sentimental garbage episode about the book,

33:08

which will be my text from here on

33:10

out, is they made the

33:12

point that all of the girls in the

33:14

book have an extra canine teeth or have

33:16

extra canine teeth. And

33:19

so that imperfection in teeth is

33:21

kind of baked into the actual

33:23

text itself. I see.

33:25

Which I think is kind of

33:27

cool that that was not just

33:29

honored aesthetically, which I think is

33:31

important, but also honoring the text

33:33

in a fascinating way. That is

33:35

fascinating. They also made the point

33:37

that mouths and mouth engagement from

33:39

dentists to retainers to just smells

33:41

of breath, et cetera, shows

33:44

up throughout that, which is interesting because I

33:46

felt like I could almost smell this movie

33:48

in a lot of ways. It's like an

33:50

extremely sensual movie in the most literal sense.

33:53

And I think for me, it was the first

33:55

time this and I don't know when being John

33:57

Malkovich came out, but I think it was either

33:59

before. for or after. That was 99 or so. Yeah,

34:02

and interesting because I think that Sofia

34:05

Coppola and Spike Jones were either married

34:07

or in a long-term relationship at this

34:09

time or right beforehand. And

34:12

these were the first two

34:15

movies where, I mean, I've

34:17

talked a lot about how I would watch, like, quote,

34:19

independent movies, but they were usually, like,

34:21

talky, very sort of, like, dialogue stuff.

34:24

And I think that these were the first movies

34:26

that I saw as a teenager where I really

34:29

understood the importance of

34:31

style, and I really

34:33

understood the importance of conveying vibe.

34:36

And where, again, I haven't seen this

34:38

movie for literally 25 years, maybe 24,

34:40

25 years. I

34:44

could evoke the feel of this movie at any

34:46

time. I could describe scenery

34:49

and colors and vibe and

34:51

the flavor of the sense

34:53

of humor without

34:56

remembering any of the text of

34:58

the movie. So that, to me,

35:00

is a really interesting feat, and

35:02

it's an extremely welcome gift to

35:04

be given as, like, a young person who liked

35:06

movies but didn't know what they liked. There's

35:09

nothing like it, is there? I'm sure

35:11

there's a lot of filmmakers our sort

35:13

of age who saw the Virgin Suicides

35:15

at quite a formative age, and yet

35:17

you don't see the style of it

35:20

recreated on screen in films that are

35:22

coming out now. It really stands alone.

35:24

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it feels

35:27

that you can feel things that she's

35:29

pulling from, for sure. I mean, this,

35:31

in a lot of ways, feels like

35:33

Robert Altman's Three Women, which itself feels

35:36

like a super stressful dream. Mm-hmm.

35:38

Mm-hmm. And this

35:40

feels like it's slightly in the opposite

35:42

direction until it turns full horror. But

35:45

yeah, this does feel like, and

35:49

I hate to even say this because I want

35:51

to honor the

35:53

influences of Sofia Coppola, but also not

35:56

be the person who constantly brings her

35:58

up in the context of... her

36:00

father and her father's generation.

36:03

But this really does feel like the

36:05

movie created by the offspring

36:07

of the 70s autors. Right.

36:12

In a great way. I mean, it feels

36:14

like something where someone is

36:16

honoring the sensibilities of the generation that

36:18

came before her, even down

36:21

into the era that she's

36:23

portraying, while also very

36:25

clearly being a person who

36:27

at this time is extremely modern. Do

36:30

you remember at the time that you watched it? I

36:32

feel like there are a number of movies where I

36:35

watched it at a very particular time in

36:37

my life. And you know, you spoke to

36:39

this to some degree about like growing with

36:41

the movie. Do you remember

36:44

like what message you received when you first

36:46

saw this? Is that something that you can

36:48

still recall? And like, how has that changed

36:50

since? Oh, I can remember watching this at

36:52

14 and just thinking about it

36:54

for days afterwards, thinking, well, what could people have

36:56

done? And thinking if they only got

36:58

there a bit sooner, which is to

37:00

completely miss the point of the story, because

37:04

the whole point of it is no one's been able

37:06

to figure this out. And it's almost

37:08

sad or watching it now, because that's the

37:10

fact. Like this is something

37:12

that took place in the past and

37:15

they're still wondering. And it starts

37:17

off quite, there's quite a

37:20

lot of humor in the film. There's

37:22

this kid who declares love for some swash

37:24

girl at school. And when she

37:26

goes on vacation, throws himself out of a window,

37:28

lands in a hedge, walks away. It's really funny.

37:31

And it's filmed in a way that's

37:33

extremely dry and funny. And these

37:35

moments of humor get less and less and less as

37:38

the film goes on. So that when towards

37:40

the end James Woods is, James

37:42

Woods is so brilliant in this. What happened to him?

37:44

He's so good for such a dirt bag.

37:47

Yeah, did 9-11 break his brain or something?

37:50

I don't know. You know about him seeing

37:52

the hijacker, hijackers prepping for 9-11? Oh

37:54

no, is that what happened? Well now this explains

37:56

it. Well, he thinks he did. Yes,

37:59

exactly. I don't know if this is a real story,

38:01

but he believed that he saw the guys

38:04

doing a dry run for 9-11

38:06

and that's where his brain just fucking

38:08

cooked out of his head. I see,

38:10

I don't think he did. I don't

38:12

think he could pick like Muhammad Ata out

38:14

of a lineup. Well, no, of course not. But

38:18

at least we'll always have his performance in

38:20

Virgin Suites. Oh yeah, I mean, look, a

38:22

lot of terrible people are good at their

38:25

performing arts. It's not really surprising. Near

38:28

the beginning of the film, he's obviously obsessed with

38:30

planes and flight and he bores

38:32

these boys to death with his

38:35

shock of how planes flew and

38:37

war planes. And then towards the end of the

38:39

film, you see him just sort of absent-mindedly

38:41

talk to some plants in the

38:43

school hallway where everyone ignores him.

38:45

And it's really sad, sort of

38:47

bleak sight. I don't know, I see

38:49

towards the end of the film, it's like the sun

38:51

doesn't shine anymore. It's horrible. Yeah. It's

38:54

really, it's very interesting casting. It's

38:57

pretty against type. He's playing

38:59

kind of what I think now we

39:01

would call the Richard Jenkins part. And

39:04

to the extent that I can see

39:06

kind of themes and messages in this

39:09

movie now, it's one of them is

39:11

just how easy it is to die

39:13

of loneliness while surrounded by people. I

39:16

think it did seem more mysterious to me,

39:18

the sequence of events when I was a

39:20

teenager reading this. And now you think about,

39:23

well, you suffer this tragedy as a family. You

39:26

don't deal with it obviously because it's 1975 and

39:28

therapy is for the birds. Or

39:31

therapy is about getting locked in a room

39:33

and screaming at each other, whatever's the fad

39:35

at the moment. And then these

39:37

girls' lives get more and more circumscribed until they're

39:40

stuck in the house together. And at that

39:42

point, it kind of makes sense. It

39:45

doesn't, I think that it's easier to see

39:47

as an adult how little it takes to

39:49

destroy the equilibrium of an adolescent. Most

39:52

of their records have been taken away from them.

39:55

That's the punishment for luck for staying out

39:57

all night with Josh Hartnett is to have

39:59

a record. taken away from

40:01

and she has to burn them in front of her

40:03

mother. Very unsafe. No, yeah. And it's

40:05

really darkly comic. I suppose it's one of the last comic moments.

40:07

Oh, kids, please. Put it on the fire and everyone's coughing. And if someone

40:09

goes, what's that smell? It's so

40:12

fucking funny. It's like, I feel like it's a send

40:14

up of Carrie, where they're like, what is Carrie's

40:16

mom like? I mean, she was

40:18

obviously pathetic in her way, but like,

40:20

what if, what if she's like, what

40:23

is Carrie? What if Carrie's mom

40:25

just had a lot less energy?

40:29

Listen, sisters, mother, she has no ribs. Yeah,

40:34

that's so, that's so funny.

40:38

And you, Sarah, you know what movie it reminded me of was Lake Mungo.

40:41

Oh, God, yeah. Sue, have you seen Lake Mungo? I

40:44

haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen

40:46

it. I'm not. I haven't seen it.

40:48

I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. I

40:50

haven't seen it. I haven't seen it.

40:53

Have you seen Lake Mungo? I haven't.

40:55

I don't know this film. Oh, I'm

40:57

reluctant to even say much then. It

40:59

is a lovely Australian ghost mockumentary. Oh,

41:01

fab, right. Yeah, I hope that you

41:03

watch it. It's really marvelous. And Sarah

41:05

was having a big time about it

41:08

a couple of years ago and then

41:10

got me to watch it. I

41:12

loved it. And it reminds of

41:15

that, Sarah, in the way that without giving

41:17

much about Lake Mungo away is like

41:19

we have, to your point about this

41:22

being haunted or burdened or

41:24

driven to death by loneliness, we

41:27

have that element and it's represented

41:29

by the landscape of this house

41:31

and this street. And

41:34

we start the movie by this alert that

41:36

all of, I think, the elms in the

41:38

neighbourhood are sick and they're going to be

41:41

taken down so that they don't make all

41:43

the other trees sick, which is interesting because

41:45

we're also talking about the

41:47

media representation of the suicide epidemic and

41:49

the, or the quote suicide epidemic with

41:51

teens in the 70s. And

41:54

as stuff progresses in this house, from

41:56

the outside, it just gets lonelier and

41:58

lonelier. There's an all-time. also equally

42:00

comic but extremely dark scene

42:03

where the girl had jumped on the fence

42:06

and impaled herself. And then, that's not the

42:08

comic scene, but the next scene where they

42:10

pull the fence out of the yard with

42:13

their cars and then it's sort of like

42:15

just like metal flying all over the place

42:17

and it just feels like over the top

42:20

and kind of sick. And then we get

42:22

down eventually to this scene where Sue's mentioned

42:24

where the dad or whoever had mentioned it

42:26

where the dad is outside just kind of

42:28

like talking to himself in

42:31

this empty and like sad landscape.

42:34

It feels like that where we're like down to

42:36

just like a lonely house at the end. Yeah.

42:39

Oh, God. It's so devastating. Yeah.

42:42

Yeah. What life do these parents have? They basically

42:45

flee their house and go somewhere else which

42:48

is understandable behavior but also it's like,

42:50

well, what do you have now? Yeah. Nothing.

42:52

How do you live with the fact

42:54

that it's all of your children? And

42:56

that's fascinating, Sarah, you link in this

42:58

to that. Iron Claw which I saw

43:01

a couple of weeks ago which thank

43:03

God Virgin Suicide isn't a true story but

43:05

Iron Claw is. Yeah. How

43:07

does that family survive? But I

43:09

guess you just do. And I

43:11

don't want to see the sequel where we see Mr.

43:14

and Mrs. Lisbon survive. That sounds

43:16

incredibly dark. Yeah. We

43:18

did talk about an upcoming bonus about

43:21

Iron Claw and the similarities between these

43:23

two movies is like when

43:25

Sean Durkin made the Iron Claw, he was

43:27

like, I'm fascinated by this story because it's

43:30

about the tragedy but it's also about the

43:32

refusal to grieve the tragedy and what that

43:34

looks like. Yeah. And that's

43:36

what we get in these. I mean, this is

43:38

the first movie in a long time and the

43:40

ice storm feels this way as well. And

43:43

Iron Claw made me feel this way as well where

43:45

I'm watching it and I'm just really trying

43:47

to – I was born – I'm 40 and I feel like I'm

43:54

the absolute youngest age and

43:57

this is just an approximation but

43:59

like the absolute youngest age

44:02

of people who can remember a time when

44:04

it was just acceptable to like never talk

44:06

about anything. Like that was the expectation is

44:08

like just don't talk about it. And

44:10

even that's not true. I mean, I'm sure people who

44:12

are who are 50 are really sort of

44:15

feeling that in one way or another in

44:17

a bigger way. But like this movie, the

44:20

horror of that really hit me watching this

44:22

in the same way I did with Iron

44:24

Claws like these people are fucking going through

44:26

it. Yeah.

44:28

And the expectation is just like watch

44:30

baseball, play with your wing or whatever

44:32

the fuck that is, sit in your

44:35

room and cry, go to church and

44:37

that's all there is. Yes, with

44:39

a sense of Celia initially having

44:41

quite dramatically tried to end her

44:44

life just before the film

44:46

begins. They sent her to Danny

44:48

DeVito's psychiatrist who watching

44:51

it this time I chose but to believe

44:53

that was the real Dr. Mantis Toboggan. I

44:56

was like that's him, that's Dr. Toboggan.

44:59

He's useless. He just tells the parents

45:01

I don't think she meant to end

45:03

her life and I'm watching and going

45:05

I think she probably did and he basically just shows her

45:07

a load of pictures, what they

45:09

call Roshar test. Roshar test, yeah.

45:11

And then he goes and he thought of all

45:13

out of ideas and he goes I don't think

45:15

you, I don't think you

45:18

have any worries in your life, you're just a

45:20

teenage girl. I was like ah. What

45:22

did she say? Her life is so good. Clearly you've never

45:24

been a 13 year old girl. Yes,

45:27

yeah. Which is the thesis of

45:29

the movie. Yes, absolutely. Yeah

45:33

and that felt very true when this

45:36

movie came out and feels true

45:38

now, hopefully less true but I don't know

45:40

but there's a basic sense of your

45:43

pain not being taken seriously as an adolescent

45:46

or as a girl particularly. Yeah,

45:48

I mean can you remember Heartbreak when

45:50

you're 14 years old? You

45:53

never experienced it before so it's like

45:55

someone's put a flaming torch in your

45:57

guts and gone ah. And

46:00

if you tell an adult how bad you feel about it,

46:02

I'll go well they'll pass and you're like, well, it's not

46:06

Well, I wish I was as limber as well Care

46:09

all right, you hard-faced mother Yeah,

46:15

and we see Lux go through that

46:17

we see her get her heartbroken and

46:20

be locked in a tower with her

46:22

three remaining sisters Yeah, of course,

46:24

they talk all day and night and eventually

46:26

make a plan to all disappear

46:28

together Yeah, there's

46:30

something remarkable about like the statement about

46:33

gender generally about the idea that the

46:35

only way that these boys can get

46:37

close to these girls Is by

46:39

looking at them through a telescope? Mmm,

46:42

like they're a galaxy away And

46:45

then they say this really interesting thing

46:47

in the narration the narrator by the

46:49

way is Giovanni Rabi see who she

46:51

will eventually cast as a Spike Jones

46:53

character in Lost in Translation Which is

46:56

very funny commenting on her ex

46:59

Oh, yes, and a forest playing a Cameron

47:01

Diaz facsimile Yes And

47:04

so the line the narrator says about

47:06

their memory their memories of these girls

47:08

is we knew the girls were really

47:11

women in disguise That they

47:13

understood love and even death and

47:15

that our job was merely to

47:17

create the noise that seemed to

47:19

fascinate them Mmm, and they're like

47:21

imagining themselves in the roles of

47:23

girls Yes Like

47:26

even that scene where they're sitting in

47:28

the room going through the journal like

47:30

it feels like an extremely Feminine scene

47:33

like there's a scene where you think one of

47:35

the the boys is going to like rest his

47:37

head into one of the one of the other

47:39

boys and it like he ultimately just sort of

47:41

lands on the bed, but there's this like Slumber

47:44

party like girl slumber party energy of

47:46

all the times that they get together

47:48

to kind of know or try to

47:50

understand or figure out These girls because

47:52

like it's really just yes I mean

47:55

obviously there's the objectification and the end

47:57

result of objectification regardless of the reason

47:59

is still kind of the same. But

48:02

Josh Harnett is really seemingly

48:05

the only sexual boy. The

48:08

other ones are sexual and they're like, if I could

48:10

just feel one of them up, one of them says

48:12

they're thinking about it for sure.

48:14

But it's just kind of

48:17

like they don't even know what to do

48:19

with gender period, which is a really interesting

48:21

thing. And they become obsessed with these girls

48:23

and every time they talk about them, it

48:25

seems like it's positioning them from some inverted

48:28

idea of like who or what they are

48:31

expected to be. Yeah. And

48:33

Josh Harnett, my reading of it

48:35

this time around was that his immediate

48:37

obsession with Lux, when he just sidles

48:39

into a classroom and she looks at

48:41

him, is he probably sees himself

48:43

in her because the narration as

48:45

we're introduced to her is, well, that summer,

48:48

I think it says he'd emerged from puppy

48:50

fat. So he'd obviously shut up and got

48:52

gorgeous over the summer and it was

48:55

to the delight of girls

48:57

and mothers all around the town.

49:00

And so he probably feels all

49:02

eyes on him at all times. Yeah.

49:06

And that was something we hadn't

49:08

noticed on previous watches of the film. And

49:10

there's the heartbreaking element of the fact that like

49:13

he is interested in her. He has

49:15

such a, at the end of the

49:17

day, what turns out to be an

49:20

extremely shallow exchange largely, I mean, entirely

49:22

on his part because they eventually sort

49:24

of hook up and then he leaves

49:26

immediately, like physically leaves the scene and

49:29

leaves forever. And he remembers that as

49:32

like the greatest love that he's had

49:34

in his life, which, you know, the

49:37

punchline of which is that like he is clearly

49:39

in some sort of treatment facility when we,

49:42

I say punchline loosely, but he's clearly in

49:44

some sort of treatment facility. Like life has

49:47

not been great for him from top to

49:49

bottom, but this

49:51

idea that resonates with me

49:54

in a way, particularly when I was that

49:56

age where like you're fascinated with people, but

49:58

didn't know why you were fascinated with them.

50:00

And then when you got with them and

50:02

had to like make some sort of reality

50:04

out of it, you had no fucking idea

50:06

what to do. And if you had, you

50:09

know, Josh Hartnett 70 skill sets, I imagine

50:11

you just literally like walked across the football

50:13

field and got out of there. Which

50:16

clearly had a real impact on her

50:18

because they like changed the trajectory of

50:21

her relationship with that kind of objectification.

50:24

Yeah, it feels like, you know, the boys

50:26

in this movie don't really even exist as

50:28

individuals. You know, they're also part of a

50:30

unit. And it feels like part of the

50:32

whole story is about the sort of seemingly

50:35

unbridgeable loneliness created between the

50:37

genders in America. Yeah,

50:40

that's a funny one. I don't think I could tell

50:42

you how many boys are obsessing

50:44

over them within the film, what

50:47

their names are really different between

50:49

them. I know one of them has

50:51

to go in for violin practice. He

50:53

plays the violin, I guess, but that's all I could tell

50:56

you. And I don't think we ever find out which one

50:58

of them is Giovanni Rubisi. No.

51:00

No, and I don't think we're supposed to know. I think

51:03

he's just kind of speaking for all of them. Yeah.

51:06

And they're even less distinguished than the

51:08

girls, which I think is one of the things

51:10

that makes the whole thing able to stick the

51:12

landing, you know? Yes. I also,

51:14

I mean, speaking of Tumblr that came up earlier and

51:17

in a way I feel like the aesthetic of Tumblr

51:19

could not have existed without this movie.

51:23

It's like 20% of it at least. Yes,

51:26

surely. Yeah. And like for people

51:28

who don't know, like how would

51:31

you describe that? It's like the

51:33

aestheticised suffering of slightly chintzy, not

51:35

chintzy, slightly fancy

51:38

girlhood. Yes. Yes.

51:40

I wasn't hugely into it, but I remember

51:42

an awful lot of photos

51:44

of girls holding cigarettes

51:46

and contorting themselves to

51:48

look as small in the

51:50

middle with boobs as big as

51:52

possible in some kind of floral.

51:55

With Kirsten Dunst's look in

51:58

this film, I remember. I

52:00

remember very strongly being just like, that's the

52:02

ultimate. There's a scene where one, a boy

52:04

has gone around there for dinner invited by

52:07

James Woods and he sort

52:09

of hangs around in a bathroom and

52:11

he smells a lipstick and it's incredibly,

52:14

as you say, Alex, incredibly sensual. And

52:16

then Lux comes in and she's wearing

52:19

jeans and this like, what's that

52:21

that called? That sheared fabric, like

52:23

vest top. And I just went, well, that's

52:26

the ultimate look for girls. So

52:28

to be honest, I thought that then, I think

52:30

it still is now, but that was the whole tumbler

52:32

look. Tiny waist, huge boobs look

52:34

very sad and maybe like you haven't eaten in a

52:37

few days. I don't think it's good. I don't think

52:39

the tumbler said it was good and a cigarette. No,

52:42

we were very into aestheticizing,

52:44

not even the effects, but

52:46

the whole lifestyle of having

52:48

an eating disorder. Absolutely. Yeah,

52:50

it was an aspiration. On

52:54

one side, it was like exactly as

52:56

Fuz just described. Like I feel like

52:58

it was like the aesthetic was represented

53:00

by the fondest sort

53:02

of heightened memories

53:04

of 1976 as portrayed

53:07

in movies from 1999 and

53:09

Indie Fleas as defined by

53:11

Terry Regina. And Kate Moss. Yeah,

53:14

exactly. So it was

53:16

like the, it was really, there was still an emphasis

53:19

on looking kind of sick. Yes. You

53:21

know? Yeah, absolutely. It's like

53:23

the eternal Victorian, there's nothing more feminine than

53:25

to look ill. You

53:30

want an undisclosed malady. That's

53:34

definitely the ideal. You want lying down

53:36

hot girl disease. Oh my God. I

53:38

hope you do a sequel to your 90s

53:40

show that's called my tumbler aesthetic. My show

53:43

this year is called Class of 2000 and it's about

53:45

our SATs in this country. They're

53:50

called your GCSEs and you do them when

53:52

you're 16, which I did mine in

53:54

the year 2000 and I

53:57

think tumblers are going to be coming in the

53:59

lot. And

54:01

the thing about Tumblr I think that felt

54:03

so revolutionary at the time is that you

54:05

had gift sets

54:07

which really hadn't been supported by

54:09

other platforms. That was really like

54:11

that rained on Tumblr and that

54:13

you could suddenly have this new technological

54:18

ability to strip a not very

54:20

interesting movie for aesthetic part. Very

54:24

well put. Right? And

54:27

we're so right that it's like I'm now

54:29

realizing that I have to go through the

54:32

inventory of movies I think I like

54:35

and wonder if I do or if I

54:37

just remember like – Or

54:39

do they give good Jeff? Yeah. Totally,

54:42

extremely just like on point. It's

54:45

no wonder that it's a place that I reexamined

54:47

a lot of my relationships with like

54:49

B horror because sitting

54:51

through that 85 minute movie is

54:53

fine but also just remembering it

54:56

in a great 10 Jeff format

54:58

is also nice. Yeah, a lot

55:00

of mediocre movies have great moments

55:02

and if you can harvest them

55:05

all at once then that's great. But

55:07

also it's like there's something to be said for the

55:09

journey, right? For watching the

55:11

first half of Lake Placid and being like, I

55:13

don't even think we're going to see this crocodile

55:16

and then oh boy do we ever see it

55:18

and I won't give away why. I

55:22

love Kathleen Turner period, like

55:24

full stop. I grew up

55:27

on Romancing the Stone. She

55:29

was in War of the Roses, right? Oh

55:32

yeah. Was she ever – And

55:34

then was blessed in my teens

55:36

with Serial Mom. And

55:39

then have her in this and she

55:41

just was always around and is a

55:43

person who kind of like

55:46

occupied much different roles

55:48

over two short

55:50

decades. In my memory, like

55:52

the 80s into the 90s, like she was playing like much

55:54

different roles in the night. Like Serial

55:56

Mom is a nuts role

55:59

to be playing. if you were Kathleen Turner in

56:01

the 80s. And

56:04

then this like, you know, sort of conservative

56:06

church mom is extremely different as

56:08

well, but she's in, oh, excuse

56:10

me, I forgot her most iconic

56:13

role of all time, which was

56:15

Jessica Rabbit's voice. Oh,

56:17

yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. She just

56:19

was around doing it, being

56:21

great my entire childhood. I really loved

56:23

her. And

56:25

Chandler's dad, when the writers of

56:28

friends didn't know the difference

56:30

between a drag queen and a trans woman.

56:32

Yep. Oh, wow. That feels like a very

56:34

friend situation. On a

56:36

rewatch, I was like, oh, it doesn't come

56:39

from as like unpleasant places. I thought it

56:41

would. It just seems to be like,

56:43

guys, did you just never meet a drag queen

56:45

or a trans woman when you heard this? And

56:49

they're like, well, no, no. Kathleen

56:55

Turner, everybody. All

56:59

the performances in this movie, I think

57:01

are wonderful. I think this movie is

57:03

a classic that feels right. Like,

57:05

I don't think its quality is debated. I don't

57:07

think anyone feels the need to defend it. Like,

57:09

I think we all agree it's at least doing

57:12

what it sets out to do, whether or not

57:15

you like that. But I think, you know,

57:17

it also shows how much of a movie can

57:19

rest on the performances of

57:21

the people in it and also on kind

57:23

of tightness of scope. You know, I

57:26

think to me what feels in retrospect

57:28

so different about this is that it

57:30

is a movie with kind of a

57:32

grown up language of cinema. And

57:35

yet it is about children. It is about

57:37

teenagers. And it's just allowing them to sort

57:39

of be as human beings.

57:41

And the fact that it's set in the

57:43

past, I'm sure makes that easier. But there's

57:45

like so often when you're watching movies

57:48

and media about teenagers, they don't even

57:50

register as human beings. You know, I

57:52

think that there's a real desire to

57:54

make the fictional teenagers not quite recognizable

57:57

as real teenagers because if we were to

57:59

actually do that it would be so

58:02

emotionally difficult and this is a movie

58:04

that actually does that. Yes. Yeah,

58:06

definitely. And in doing

58:09

so, like movies about real

58:11

teenagers are always devastated. Yeah.

58:14

Like stand by me as a movie

58:16

about real teenagers. About real tweens, no

58:18

less. No, like 11. And

58:20

it's devastating. Yeah. Because

58:23

you feel everything so,

58:26

to the points made earlier, you feel everything so fucking

58:29

hard with no context

58:32

and usually nobody to support you.

58:35

It's just like being an alien and

58:38

absolutely unguarded and typically

58:41

extremely unsupported. And

58:43

it's made by someone fairly older

58:45

than the people she's

58:47

making the film about. Like

58:49

something popular, what, 26, 27

58:52

when she's making this movie, that's

58:54

incredible. Yeah. And as a debut,

58:56

jeez, this is wild. Yeah. I

58:59

mean, are there many stronger debuts in Hollywood? I

59:01

can't really think of too

59:03

many. It's an incredible debut. Yeah. Certainly

59:06

not Francis Ford Coppola's first film,

59:08

Dementia 13. Although

59:14

I do really like that one. I

59:16

can't even imagine what Dementia 13 is about. Oh,

59:19

it's great. It was, so

59:21

Coppola was working for Roger Corman. I forget

59:23

in what capacity and they were shooting a

59:25

B movie at a castle in Ireland. And

59:29

Coppola was like, if I write a

59:31

new screenplay real quick, real quick, can

59:33

we just use the same

59:36

location and actors and make my movie as

59:38

well? And Roger Corman was like, sure. Oh,

59:40

bless them. Yeah. So

59:43

I do recommend it. But right,

59:45

I mean, there's such a sense of

59:47

things being so thought through, you know? And

59:51

that's also, I think, one of the great things about

59:53

debut films at their best is that they, at

59:56

their best, can be the culmination of everything somebody has

59:58

worked out to that point in their life. And

1:00:00

this feels like one of those. Yeah, it really does.

1:00:03

Yeah, no one's going to be able to tell

1:00:05

you, oh, they're just repeating themselves. This is their

1:00:07

first film. So yeah, it's reminding me of

1:00:09

like, over here in comedians, we do a,

1:00:12

the ideal is you do a show a year and

1:00:14

take it up to the Edinburgh Festival and you plan

1:00:16

your year around the Edinburgh Festival. It's not the ideal,

1:00:18

it's horrendous, but that's what I do. In

1:00:22

many ways, your first show is

1:00:24

your easiest because you

1:00:26

can use everything you've learned in stand up up

1:00:28

to that point and then the second show, you've

1:00:30

got to start again and that's when you do

1:00:32

a bad second show. Yeah.

1:00:36

Or just take off and leave, make lost in translation,

1:00:38

which is not a bad second show. It's

1:00:40

just annoying. Is

1:00:45

there, is there anything else we want to say before

1:00:47

we start to conclude? Um,

1:00:50

well, I really think that women can direct

1:00:52

movies. It's controversial,

1:00:54

but that's what I believe and I'd

1:00:56

like to see more of it. Is

1:01:00

the daddy question even appropriate to ask?

1:01:03

We ask it for all the other ones. I get it, yeah.

1:01:06

Well, let's do it. Uh, Sue's,

1:01:09

James Woods is the girl's

1:01:11

father. Who in your view

1:01:13

is the daddy of the Virgin Suicides?

1:01:17

Um, I'm going to say

1:01:19

Joe, the local, uh, neighbor kid who has

1:01:21

Down syndrome. Oh, Joe. When he

1:01:23

says hi to Cecilia, it's the only

1:01:25

time you see her genuinely smile in

1:01:27

the movie. And, uh,

1:01:29

so as far as I'm concerned, he

1:01:32

is the one true man in this film. Yeah.

1:01:35

Oh my God, that is brutal. Yeah. It's

1:01:38

a horrible scene, isn't it? Yeah. It's

1:01:41

really uncomfortable. I am going to pick,

1:01:44

um, not like, I don't think truly,

1:01:47

I don't know who is acting

1:01:49

with strong daddy energy in this

1:01:51

whole movie. I imagine some

1:01:53

of the girls are, but we don't know enough

1:01:55

about them for me even to make that call.

1:01:58

I think I am going to. to

1:02:00

say not because of the total

1:02:02

of anything that he does, but like I

1:02:05

just love Michael Perret who plays older Tripp

1:02:07

Fontaine. He through

1:02:09

and through is like a

1:02:11

tragic dirt bag. He doesn't

1:02:13

do anything redeeming in any real way.

1:02:16

But in a lot of ways, I think

1:02:18

he probably reminds many people who watch this

1:02:20

movie of their dad. He

1:02:23

has some like Napoleon Dynamite Uncle

1:02:25

Rico style memory of

1:02:28

this grand thing that happened to them in high school

1:02:30

that will never ever happen again. And

1:02:32

in reality, it turns out like even

1:02:34

that grand thing is based on a deeply

1:02:37

false narrative of yourself. So

1:02:39

I'm going to go with that

1:02:41

as approximation for dads we regrettably

1:02:44

recognize in our own lives. Sarah

1:02:48

Marshall, who's your daddy in this

1:02:50

movie? It's Sophia, baby. Oh,

1:02:52

great news. Yeah. I

1:02:54

think that this movie has just a sense of

1:02:57

security behind the camera, which

1:03:00

I know comes from many different places and many

1:03:02

different people who work on

1:03:04

films. But the style

1:03:06

of it, which carries so

1:03:09

much weight, feels so developed

1:03:11

and so sure

1:03:13

of what it's doing. And it's just, it feels good

1:03:15

to be in a strong

1:03:17

woman's hands. Yeah.

1:03:21

Well put. Yeah. Yeah, good for

1:03:23

her. It's crazy to think

1:03:25

that like out of her brain she

1:03:27

created Tumblr aesthetic. Like. She

1:03:30

didn't even mean to. She was trying to make a

1:03:32

movie. Nice. Yeah, she knew

1:03:34

what she wanted it to look like and it

1:03:37

turns out it was the Tumblr aesthetic. Oh,

1:03:39

good for her. Yeah. She also,

1:03:41

I think she cancels out any Nepo baby bitterness

1:03:44

that I could possibly have because having

1:03:47

read extensively earlier this year

1:03:49

what she went through, having

1:03:52

been, as you say, forced to be in

1:03:54

the Godfather part three because her dad was

1:03:56

like, must have my daughter in this movie.

1:03:58

Oh, she did. is that even if this

1:04:00

film had been terrible, she deserved nothing

1:04:03

but good reviews. Do you

1:04:05

have any more tidbits to share about

1:04:07

that that come to mind? Oh my

1:04:09

goodness. I mean, so Winona Ryder, Johnny

1:04:11

Depp literally called and said, yeah, Winona

1:04:13

Ryder's pulling out of your movie by,

1:04:15

and I think Francis Ford Coughlin had

1:04:17

like five days. And the

1:04:20

studio had said, you must make the film

1:04:22

within budget and in this exact time, because we

1:04:24

want to release it now and you owe us, because

1:04:26

he'd virtually bankrupted

1:04:29

production companies or something. So

1:04:32

he was ringing around. They tried to get Julia

1:04:34

Roberts. They couldn't get anyone and he then went, right,

1:04:36

we're going to use to fit. And everyone tried to

1:04:38

talk him out of it. They were like, she's not

1:04:40

experienced enough. She doesn't even want to do this. She

1:04:43

doesn't even want to be an actor. He

1:04:45

was adamant. And there are,

1:04:48

as you say, huge problems with the script

1:04:51

are nothing to do with the fact that, yes,

1:04:53

she is a bad actor and she didn't even

1:04:55

want to be an actor. Because

1:04:57

it's less than 10 years later, Virgin

1:05:00

Suicides comes out and there's a like

1:05:02

a panel and she's on it after

1:05:04

like a press screening of the film. And someone

1:05:07

asks her, they say, how

1:05:09

did your experiences in the

1:05:11

Godfather 3 help you make this film? And everyone's

1:05:13

like, oh my God. And she

1:05:15

goes, well, it certainly helped me be less afraid

1:05:17

of critics. And I thought, oh, I love

1:05:19

you forever. So fit Coughlin, you have my heart. Yeah,

1:05:23

it's so, I don't know. There's a

1:05:25

kind of a wonderful balance to her

1:05:27

having been dragged to hell

1:05:29

and back for just showing up and

1:05:32

doing her best. Yeah. Is

1:05:35

something she never asked to be a part of. And then

1:05:37

winning back the ability to be seen as

1:05:40

a real person in a way by showing

1:05:42

that she had thoughts inside of her. Yeah.

1:05:45

As all women have the right to, but so

1:05:47

rarely get. Yeah. And then making a

1:05:49

movie about how no one can see the thoughts inside of

1:05:51

these girls. Yeah. And

1:05:55

then making a movie about going out for

1:05:57

noodles with Bill Murray. Yeah. Alrighty,

1:06:09

everybody, that is it for this week's episode

1:06:11

of You Are Good of Feeling's podcast about movies.

1:06:14

Thank you so much to Suze Kemenor for joining us on

1:06:17

this episode. Thank you, of course, to Miranda

1:06:19

Zichler for editing and producing this episode. Thanks

1:06:21

to Fresh Flesh for providing the beats that

1:06:23

make our episode sound so sweet. Thanks so

1:06:25

much to Carolyn Kendrick, founding and consulting producer.

1:06:28

We really appreciate you, Carolyn Kendrick. Thank

1:06:30

you to Alyssa Anoffrio for

1:06:33

producing old video edits that

1:06:35

let you know about the episode that you

1:06:38

can find on our Reels and TikTok. Well,

1:06:40

you can find it on my TikTok at AlexSpeed. We don't have

1:06:42

one yet. I don't know why. There's

1:06:44

just too

1:06:47

many fucking accounts. So many accounts. We

1:06:49

have to make so much content. Maybe

1:06:53

some. But in the meantime, find us on

1:06:56

Reels and look at those videos

1:06:58

that Alyssa produces. They're great. Alyssa's awesome at

1:07:00

doing that sort of thing. If you need

1:07:02

that sort of thing done, get in touch

1:07:04

with Alyssa Anoffrio. Find

1:07:07

us on social at You Are Good or

1:07:09

You Are Good Pod. Support us

1:07:11

on Patreon or Apple podcast subscriptions. That's how

1:07:13

we make the show. That's how it's possible.

1:07:16

And you get those bonus episodes. That's sweet.

1:07:18

Now that I'm in LA full time, if

1:07:20

you see a very tall, handsome man walking

1:07:22

around, it's probably me. Don't

1:07:26

be afraid to say hi. All right. That's

1:07:29

it. We did it. We'll talk with you all

1:07:31

next week. Don't forget. In

1:07:33

the meantime, that you, my friend,

1:07:35

you are good. Take it easy.

1:07:53

Take it easy.