The Movie: Sofia Coppola turned in a pretty solid film for her debut as a writer/director in this film adaptation of of the novel with the same name. Told from the point of view of a narrator we never see, this film is a look back on a time when the Lisbon sisters captivated the imaginations of the adolescent boys in their neighborhood. Living under the suffocating thumb of their mother, each of the girls is eventually driven to suicide, leaving those boys to try for the rest of their lives to put together all of the pieces of the puzzle as to why and how it all happened.

This film seemed to teeter back and forth between trying to be a straight "indie" drama and trying to be one of those films that gets full of slick film effects, leaving the overall feeling of the film somewhat disjointed, particularly because the "slick" effects weren't done all that slickly. I was also somewhat let down by the fact that the film, much like the puzzle the boys have been trying to solve, left me feeling like some pieces were still missing, but I found it enjoyable overall nonetheless.

I felt that often times the composition of the shots was awkward, with many shots being framed with too much, or more often, too little headroom, cropping the tops of actors' heads out of the frame. Unfortunately, the way it was done, I honestly couldn't be sure if it was something that was done on purpose to give an off-balance feel, or if there was something wrong with the video transfer, haha.

I know some people who have read the novel who are not happy with how it was adapted, but having done some research into it without having actually read the novel myself, it seems that this was not exactly an easy book to adapt. Apparently the people who originally owned the rights to the book could not come up with a satisfactory script and were happy to allow Sofia Coppola to produce the version that she had gone ahead and written despite the fact that she did not own the rights to the book herself.

At any rate, this is a pretty interesting film that might be worth a look, certainly not a bad first go around for a new director. However, I'm pretty sure that the character driven nature of this film and lack of action will leave some viewers bored to tears.

The DVD: The anamorphic video transfer on this DVD is amazingly clean, clear and crisp with great contrast, vivid color and just a slight amount of film grain to remind you where these images originated from. The audio was similarly clean and crisp.

Special features include a music video, a trailer, a still photo slide show, and a behind the scenes featurette that features way too many lengthy clips from the film and that also reminded me how much better I like it for Sofia Coppola to stay behind the camera. Just hearing the flat tone of her voice sends chills up my spine as the horrors of The Godfather Part 3 go flashing through my mind.

At any rate, if you like this film, you will find a high quality presentation of it on this DVD. And if you don't like this film... at least there's still a bunch of hot teenaged girls to look at?