Somewhere – Bitch Flicks

Top 10 ‘Bitch Flicks’ Articles Written in 2017

Here are our top 10 most popular articles written in 2017.

10) Queen of Katwe Is a Gorgeous Inspiring Look at a Young Black Life Fully Realized by Candice Frederick

“Yes, it’s wholesome and finishes on a heartwarming high like many other cherished Disney stories. But at its core lies a story of redemption, cultural pride, feminism, and economics — elements of a young life contending with extraordinary challenges. […]

“Queen of Katwe is a mesmerizing story of a life fully realized, a life that’s often overlooked and not given a chance. Its young cast, led by Nalwanga’s nuanced performance, help illuminate layers of humanity resting deep in the ‘slums’ of Uganda, exhibiting talent well beyond their years. Meanwhile, Oyelowo and Nyong’o’s performances temper the film with heart-wrenching emotion. And Mira Nair’s touching portrait of Katwe’s inspiring young queen with a dream is one to remember.”

9) Céline Sciamma’s Films (Girlhood, Tomboy, and Water Lilies) Capture the Complexities of Adolescence by Charline Jao

“French director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma of Water Lilies, Tomboy, and Girlhood has gained critical acclaim for her portrayals of adolescence and coming-of-age, particularly on themes of gender and sexuality. Sciamma’s movies are intimate character studies, punctuated with dancing, tiny details embedded in body language, and a serious respect for younger viewers. For all the cringe-worthy or mediocre child acting that permeates film, Sciamma has a remarkable ability to draw out nuanced and organic performances in her works, oftentimes from non-actors.

“[…] The adolescent or teenager sits on the threshold of adulthood by sitting between child and adult, figuring out their rites of passage and space within society. This undefined, yet crucial space is an uncomfortable one and Sciamma’s films excel because they embrace the chaotic ambiguity of youthful liminality.”

8) Hush: A Resourceful Heroine with Disabilities for the Horror Genre by Cassandra A. Clarke

“What’s brilliant about Hush, written by Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel (who stars as the lead), is it pushes the envelope of the survivor’s tale further through its main character, Madison ‘Maddie’ Young: a woman who is deaf, mute, and lives alone in a rural area. In addition to featuring a female protagonist with disabilities, Hush crafts a home-invasion story that isn’t about her ‘problems’ or obstacles or the attacker at all, but rather it focuses on the tactful solutions she chooses along the way.

“…Its depiction of Maddie as a full, engaging character who fends for herself and thrives alone is an asset to adding more characters with disabilities in films, especially horror, as not victims but stars.”

7) Gilmore Girls: Rory Gilmore Is an Entitled Millennial by Scarlett Harris

“That’s because she’s never had to hustle; everything has been handed to her. She only watched her mother struggle to raise her on her own, and even then it’s established that Lorelai went to great pains not to expose Rory to her struggles. […]

“To be fair, Rory is largely a product of her upbringing. Until the events of Gilmore Girls as we know it — Lorelai’s reconciliation with her rich parents so Rory can go to an expensive private school and then Yale — Rory was raised by an independent, struggling, small-town single mom. Whatever life lessons she learned there were swiftly erased by the ensuing plot developments: her rich grandparents and then her rich father paying for her education and European holidays, her rent-free accommodations, and breaks in school and work to ‘find herself’ similarly bankrolled by Richard (Edward Herrmann), Emily (Kelly Bishop), and Logan (Matt Czuchry). […]

“Despite her flaws, I relate to Rory because she displays all my — and my generation’s — worst characteristics.”

6) The Love That’s Really Real: American Psycho as Romantic Comedy by Caroline Madden

“A 2006 YouTube video created a parody trailer envisioning American Psycho (2000) as romantic comedy. While the stark juxtapositions between the classic boy-meets-girl formula and a horrifying portrait of a serial murder are amusing, the sentiments between them are not so far-fetched. Although primarily a horror film, American Psycho has a satiric backbone that appropriates codes from the romantic comedy genre to expose the absurdities of our gender ideals. Director and co-writer Mary Harron’s lens skewers the qualities we find appealing in romantic comedies as terrifying.

“Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a concoction of the romantic comedy and drama archetype of ‘the bad boy.'”

5) The Revenant Should Be Left in the River to Drown by Celey Schumer

“Don’t believe the hype. You have been conned. The Revenant is a terrible film. […]

“This white-man-against-all-odds tale of revenge has been told so many times, even Michael Bay is probably like, “Eh, can’t we find something more original?” […]

“The second galling part of the film is its abhorrent treatment of Native peoples. It is at best mediocre, at worst condescending, and at all times unremarkable lazy recycled fodder. Almost every time Hugh has an interaction with a Native American person, they meet with disaster. Honestly, Chief Elk Dog (Duane Howard) and his men are the only ones operating with their own agency and justice in their quest to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk’o). But we hardly see them and are left to infer all of this information, until of course Hugh the White Man comes to Powaqa’s rescue. […]

“Can we see this whole movie from the Arikara tribe’s perspective? From Powaqa’s perspective? That would be an actual game changer.”

4) The Eyes of My Mother Is a Gorgeous Coming-of-Age Horror You’re Not Likely to Forget by Candice Frederick

“Oh, how I love this age we’re living in in which women characters on the big and small screens are allowed to be inappropriate, messy, b**chy, and sexual. It just further illuminates the myriad complexities women embody, painting a more thorough profile of inclusive feminism. But even while Hollywood has been consistently pushing these boundaries in more recent years, few films have explored morbid sensuality through the gaze of a woman better than writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s The Eyes of My Mother. […]

“…Pesce explores the nature of human instinct and arrested development in a way that is uncomfortable to watch yet immersive just the same.”

3) 20 Years of The Craft: Why We Needed More of Rochelle by Ashlee Blackwell

“I was flustered and empathetic to a character that was virtually invisible to an entire school population outside of her small coven of comrades, unless to be the unchecked target of racist scorn. This made her experience even that more isolating in contrast to her white female counterparts who, if they did get that brief seat at the table, were promptly dismissed for their class, burn scars, and not performing for the teenage ‘good ‘ol boys’ club. The most glaring difference; Rochelle was never going to get that seat. […]

“The movie for many sparked the thirst to explore the deep intersections of the weirdo. Rochelle was the social outcast with the other handful of social outcasts of St. Bernard Academy, sure. But how do we cinematize the Black girl outcast teenager that many of us felt like? That just so happens to be a practicing witch?

“Much of what can be read of Rochelle relies heavily on those of us whom she meant so much to. What kinds of conversations did young Black girls have back in 1996 and are having now about the importance of her presence in a film that at least, didn’t blend her in colorblind rhetoric? How did many of us find camaraderie, empathy, and imagination in Rochelle’s broader, unseen story?”

2) Caitlin Snow: It’s Time to Give The Flash’s Overlooked Heroine Her Due by Lacy Baugher

“Plus, the decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place.

“Caitlin’s journey – whether she ultimately keeps her powers or not – should be about figuring where she fits within Team Flash, within her family, and within her own idea of herself. We have seen Caitlin unnerved by the darkness inside her. She has issues with her mother and even occasionally with members of her own team. She’s certainly lost enough to want to burn the world down twice over. But she’s never really gotten the chance to deal with any of those issues on-screen in a significant way. This Killer Frost arc offers a perfect opportunity for her to finally do so. Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.”

1) Too Feminine, Too Pretty, and the Gendered Bias in the Critique of Sofia Coppola’s Films by Claire White

“However, while being one of the most discussed women directors, it is hard to think of a female director who is under as much scrutiny as Sofia Coppola. This is especially true when it comes to her signature pretty and feminine filmic style.

“When it comes to the critique of Sofia Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. …Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. As explored in Rosalind Galt’s book Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, prettiness in film is not exclusively female or feminine, and is thus unfair to use as a critique against women directors’ films. […]

“There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. ‘Pretty’ is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.”

Too Feminine, Too Pretty, and the Gendered Bias in the Critique of Sofia Coppola’s Films

When it comes to the critique of Sofia Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. … Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. … There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. “Pretty” is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.

This guest post written by Claire White appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

It seems somewhat expected to have an article on Sofia Coppola during Women Directors Week. To some, it may even seem unfair, especially since there are so many amazingly talented female directors who do not receive nearly as much, nor enough, recognition. Having not released a film since 2013’s based-on-a-true-story teen crime film The Bing Ring, the fact that she lingers in our minds is a true testament to her artistry and impact as a director. However, while being one of the most discussed women directors, it is hard to think of a female director who is under as much scrutiny as Sofia Coppola. This is especially true when it comes to her signature pretty and feminine filmic style.

When it comes to the critique of Coppola, her filmic style is too often described along the lines of being too pretty, too feminine, or as style over substance. Peter Travers from Rolling Stone enjoys her films yet felt the need to justify why he might enjoy such a feminine film: “With one critic calling it ‘frippery’ and the Internet buzz saying it’s only “for girls and gays,” Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette makes it challenging for a guy to do her a solid.” William Morris writes at The Boston Globe, “As art, the movie [Marie Antoinette] is neither shallow nor profound, just inconsequential.” For The Bling Ring, Ty Burr describes the film as “a beautiful zoo” with characters “beautiful to look at” but feels the film lacks sympathy. Amy Woolsey’s address of this supposed emptiness, published at Bitch Flicks, highlights the gendered nature of such a critique. Male directors, however, who exhibit the same attention to style and aesthetics, are not held to this same ideal. As explored in Rosalind Galt’s book Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image, prettiness in film is not exclusively female or feminine, and is thus unfair to use as a critique against women directors’ films.

With five feature films (The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere, The Bling Ring) and with a sixth, The Beguiled, being released later this year, Sofia Coppola has firmly established herself as a modern-day auteur. All her films are about girls and young women. She emphasizes mood, atmosphere, and slow moving narratives. Her dreamy colors and aesthetics, soft tones, use of soundtracks, and undeniable presence of the female voice have become synonymous with her name.

In his essay, “Off with Hollywood’s Head: Sofia Coppola as Feminine Auteur,” Todd Kennedy addresses the harsh critique on Coppola in the reviews of her films. He postulates:

“…the implication that a unique visual style lacks meaning because it is, essentially, pretty speaks toward the manner in which the critics seem unprepared to evaluate Coppola’s films on her own terms. Choosing to develop her own, feminine film form, she causes critics (and often audiences) not to know what to do with her films…” (2010, 38).

I suppose this is where I mention that Sofia Coppola is the daughter of esteemed 20th-century auteur Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now). Her lineage is part of the reason why her films are considered under so much scrutiny (not to mention the fact that women-directed films typically face more scrutiny). When seasoned cinephiles see the Coppola name on a film, I’m sure a soft, atmospheric film about five alienated sisters, or an 80s synth-pop, candy-colored romp at Versailles was not what they were expecting. In effect, Sofia Coppola as a director seems to be viewed as a little girl who was allowed to play with a film camera because of her father’s accomplishments and not necessarily as a talented director, in her own right.

Furthermore, Kennedy argues that “there is an implied, gendered language inherent of the attacks upon Sofia Coppola” (2010, 38). The implication of films being “too feminine,” as if masculinity is the default, is evidence of the sexist, masculine domination and nature of the film industry and film criticism.

Rosalind Galt outlines that prettiness in film has always been a critique, “defined by its apparently obvious worthlessness” (100, 7). But in modern cinema, it is something that is held against gender. Throughout time, film critics regard “pretty” as “merely pretty” and thus as films lacking “depth, seriousness or complexity of meaning” (2011, 6). Compared to other male directors with similar styles, this worthlessness is only ever present in regard to a women director like Sofia Coppola. Wes Anderson has cultivated a unique, decorative style for his films, but unlike Coppola, he is revered for it. Sofia Coppola’s distinctive filmic style has been parodied, but arguably not analyzed and celebrated to the extent of Wes Anderson’s films. Joe Wright’s period dramas are filled with just as much decadence and prettiness as Marie Antoinette, but he is instead praised for it.

There is a double standard in the way prettiness is regarded in cinema. “Pretty” is for female directors, but for male directors, prettiness isn’t ever uttered, and reverence is received in its place.

Let’s compare:

Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Damien Chazelle’s La La Land: both beautiful and visually stunning films, both pretty films. Each film was made while the respective directors were young, and both were in the early stages of their career. Both films received critical acclaim.

Sofia Coppola was the third woman (the first woman from the U.S.) to ever be nominated for the Best Director Academy Award for her sophomore feature, which she also wrote. The film received numerous nominations and awards throughout the season, and was nominated further for Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor at the Academy Awards. Sofia Coppola lost both Best Film and Best Director to the fantasy epic (and male-dominated) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and instead was awarded Best Screenplay — high praise for her work, but not for the film’s direction and visuals.

In contrast, Damien Chazelle’s third feature film, La La Land, a visual spectacle of music and colors that mimic glorious Technicolor—and so pretty, but almost no one utters the word (although this review does). Chazelle swept through awards season, taking the Best Director award at the Academy Awards, but it never became synonymous with a pretty film. While the film has become divisive amongst film critics, the criticisms tend to focus on its depiction of jazz, the lack of skill in the singing and dancing, the lack of LGBTQ characters, and the film’s “unbearable whiteness.” Its criticisms aren’t coded in gendered language.

Sofia Coppola’s films are regularly accused, of having style over substance, but so does La La Land. Hiding behind the spectacle and the Old Hollywood Musical revival, was an empty story which lacked the emotional impact needed to really pack a punch during the third act. What we saw of aspiring actress Mia Dolan (Emma Stone, who carried the movie) and jazz purist Sebastian only skimmed the surface of what I believe could have been intensely complex characters. We as an audience saw so little of their relationship (a montage worth of love, essentially) that when the two broke apart, the film flatlined until the next musical number. The film is pretty, a love-letter to Hollywood, and Hollywood loves itself. While it won many awards and has received praise from film critics, many critics have denounced or criticized the film, they just haven’t done so in the same gendered way as Sofia Coppola’s films.

With the domination of male directors in the film industry, women too often see themselves represented on-screen through the male lens: Laura Mulvey’s term of the Male Gaze. Through the Male Gaze, women are seen on-screen as static and eroticized objects. In effect, it is rare to see women on-screen outside of the Male Gaze. Sofia Coppola emphasizes the female voice and representing the female experience and girlhood in an array of contexts — yet all quite similar, whether it be the loneliness and isolation of the Lisbon household, of Tokyo or the Palace of Versailles — it’s enlightening to see on-screen. The double standard in film criticism and film awards diminishes the importance and achievements of the female director and the female voice on-screen.

Sofia Coppola’s latest film The Beguiled is set to be released this year with a screening at the Cannes Film Festival. She is one of three women who have been selected to screen for competition at Cannes, a number which remains too low. Set in Civil War-era Virginia at a young women’s school, led by Nicole Kidman and (Coppola-favorite) Kirsten Dunst, the girls and women’s lives are disrupted when a wounded soldier (Colin Farrell) arrives at their house. A thriller, and a remake of the 1971 Western, this film looks to be much darker and less colorful as her previous films, and is a genre-change. While “her approach” on The Beguiled “was different,” Coppola told the Los Angeles Times that she “really wanted to emphasize that lacy, feminine world.” Perhaps this film is her response to previous critiques — that she can do substance and she is here to show it to you. A radical interpretation would be the “vengeful bitches” in the film represent Coppola herself, fighting back against patriarchal society, for a soldier is the very stereotypical depiction of masculinity. The film industry better watch out, Sofia Coppola is not going to take this standing down.

Bibliography:

Kennedy, T 2010, ‘Off With Hollywood’s Head: Sofia Coppola as Feminine Auteur’, Film Criticism, vol 35, issue 1, pp 37-59

Galt, R 2011, Pretty: film and the aesthetic image, Columbia University Press, New York.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Sofia Coppola as Auteur: Historical Femininity and Agency in Marie Antoinette

Sofia Coppola and the Silent Woman

Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette Surprisingly Feminist

The Virgin Suicides: Striking Similarities Between the Lisbon and Romanov Sisters

The Repercussions of Repressing Teenage Girls in Mustang and The Virgin Suicides

Bad Girls and (Not-So)-Guilty Pleasures in The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring: American Emptiness

Othering and Alienation in Lost in Translation

Claire White is a Screen & Cultural Studies and Media & Communications graduate, bookseller, and production intern based in Melbourne, Australia. She is founder and writer of the all-female stage and screen blog Cause a Cine. You can follow her on Twitter @clairencew.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

It’s Time to Fucking Rally from Feministing:

Stand Up For Women’s Health!

Saturday, February 26th

Foley Square, Across from the Court House in Lower Manhattan

New York City

1-3pm

No Shocker–Hollywood Is Sexist and Ageist from Women and Hollywood:

“Now long-time screenwriter Tracy Jackson (The Guru and Confessions of a Shopaholic) has divulged a few dirty secrets about how hard it is for a woman of 50 to get a gig as a screenwriter in Hollywood in her memoir Between a Rock and a Hot Place – Why Fifty Is Not the New Thirty.”

Movie Review: Just Go With It from The New York Times:

“None of the women have professional ambitions or money of their own; their primary asset is ‘hotness.’ Ms. Aniston proudly shows herself off in a bikini–and looks great, it must be said–while Mr. Sandler keeps his shirt on, hanging loosely over his baggy pants. Yes, I know, the double standard is nothing new, but a wittier, less insecure movie might have at least had some fun with it.”

Kanye West’s Monster Misogyny from Feminist Frequency:

“And perhaps this would be a good time to define misogyny because there seems to be some confusion about the word in relation to Kanye’s video. First, when we talk about women, we mean full and complete human beings and all that that entails. Misogyny as defined by the Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology ‘is a cultural attitude of hatred for females simply because they are female. It is a central part of sexist prejudice and ideology and, as such, is an important basis for the oppression of females in male-dominated societies. Misogyny is manifested in many different ways from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies.'”

The Princess Complex from In These Times:

“As any parent who has raised both boys and girls knows, even the most strenuous efforts to keep academic, social and economic expectations equal are undermined by the outside world. Men have privileges: better pay, easier entree to every field except teaching and nursing. (And people with privileges–men and women–are as a rule loath to relinquish them.) Undergirding those privileges lies a set of gender expectations, a stereotype of femininity that can drive a fair-minded parent, like Peggy Orenstein, wild. As Orenstein recounts in her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter (January, HarperCollins), from the time they can walk young girls are in thrall to a consumer market intent on transforming them into sexualized princesses.”

Death By Femininity, Again from I Blame the Patriarchy:

“On one hand, this HuffPo item supports the anti-porn mores of Savage Death Island: Young Berger has died of extreme femininity. Her heart stopped during her 6th breast augmentation surgery and she never regained consciousness. The patriarchy blamer naturally recognizes a familiar narrative: desperate to appease the oppressor through rigorous adherence to deeply internalized pornographic beauty standards, Berger undertook multiple self-mutilations, and paid the ultimate price. Femininity kills.”

Somewhere? Somewhat. from Feminist Music Geek:

“I also think Coppola has something to say about growing up female. Yes, she’s addressing a particular kind of femininity. She is concerned with white, heterosexual women and girls gilded with privilege–except maybe the Lisbon girls, who are part of a single-income family supported by a school teacher’s salary. Sure, we have every reason to critique the construction of such limited representations. But I don’t necessarily have a problem with people writing and directing what they know.”

The Closing of the American Erotic from The New York Times:

“When I saw the original version of ‘Blue Valentine’ at the Sundance Film Festival last year (the film was subsequently trimmed before it was rated), I wasn’t shocked by the sex–after all, it’s about two lovely young people who can’t keep their hands off each other–but I was startled. American characters–heterosexuals!–were having sex in a movie. Even at this pre-eminent independent festival, American filmmakers shy away from sex, especially the hot, sweaty kind. The old production code might have crumbled in the 1960s and couples can now share a bed, but the demure fade to black and the prudish pan–coitus interruptus via a crackling fire and underwear strewn across the floor–endures.”

Icons, Superheroes and Fantasies a Feminist Can Love? from On the Issues:

“In contrast to the tall, muscular, brightly garbed, ray-of-sunshine vision of Wonder Woman, with her pretty American Pie expressions and sexually-objectified postures, Lisbeth Salander is a small, queerly androgynous weirdo–sullen, introverted, self-doubting, socially awkward, gloomily clad in black leather and body piercing. She is a Gothic punk outsider, a vigilante genius with a cold penetrating gaze, a mesmerizing pop culture fantasy figure acting out unspoken desires with life-affirming results.”

Misogyny and the 2011 Superbowl from The Daily Censored:

“We live in a society where misogyny is increasing to the point that the Republican Party is attempting to redefine rape, as we speak. The Super bowl is so highly touted and hyped as a grand celebration of the nation; it’s no wonder that the ugly United States culture is exposed during this athletic spectacle in which much of the world tunes in. We must reject the hatred of or aggression against women and girls in order to build a culture and society worth living in. Women hold up half the sky.”

Hollywood’s Whiteout from The New York Times:

“What happened? Is 2010 an exception to a general rule of growing diversity? Or has Hollywood, a supposed bastion of liberalism so eager in 2008 to help Mr. Obama make it to the White House, slid back into its old, timid ways? Can it be that the president’s status as the most visible and powerful African-American man in the world has inaugurated a new era of racial confusion–or perhaps a crisis of representation?”

Director Spotlight: Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola with her Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola is one of only four women ever nominated for a Best Director Academy Award, and was the first woman from the United States to achieve the honor. Her nomination was for Lost in Translation, for which she won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. (The only woman to win the Directing Oscar is Kathryn Bigelow; other nominees have been Jane Campion for The Piano and Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties.)

In her four feature films, Coppola has maintained quite a bit of creative control by not only directing but writing each one. Her career began as an actress, and in 1999 she directed her first feature, The Virgin Suicides. Coppola has received a lot of criticism over the years, from her family wealth and industry connections (because no men in Hollywood got where they are today through connections, right?) to the subjects of her films. While I admit to personally thinking that emptiness is sometimes mistaken for profundity in her films, I admire her hard work, vision, and success in Hollywood–and find each of her films lovely and interesting.

Here are the feature-length films that Coppola has written and directed. She has also directed the short films Lick the Star and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Somewhere (2010)

Coppola’s most recent film, Somewhere, is currently playing in theatres and won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

From the official film website, here is the synopsis:

You have probably seen him in the tabloids; Johnny is living at the legendary Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood. He has a Ferrari to drive around in, and a constant stream of girls and pills to stay in with. Comfortably numbed, Johnny drifts along. Then, his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) from his failed marriage arrives unexpectedly at the Chateau. Their encounters encourage Johnny to face up to where he is in life and confront the question that we all must: which path in life will you take?

Dana Stevens, in her Slate review, “My Sophia Problem,” shares my frustrations with a director who doesn’t transcend “individual filmic moments that transport and transform both the characters and the viewer. She’s the queen of fleeting brilliance, little glimpses of beauty and sadness and truth.”

But I don’t think it’s revealing too much (no more than the elliptical trailer does) to say that this is a movie about a father and daughter who are learning, however haltingly and briefly, to connect. As they do, there are lovely moments along the way—I adored a casual, improvised-sounding scene in which Cleo and her dad play a video game while Johnny’s childhood friend Sammy (Chris Pontius) heckles them from the sidelines. But there’s no discernible trajectory that joins one epiphany to the next, making Johnny’s last-scene revelation—and his ambiguous final gesture—feel unearned and underwhelming.

Ann Hornaday, writing for The Washington Post, has a more positive take–and I think accurately calls Coppola’s films “tone poems” in her review, “A Hollywood daughter’s daddy issues”

As with every Coppola tone poem, “Somewhere” is laced with moments of pure loveliness — Cleo swirling on the ice in a dreamy pastel-colored cloud, or playing Guitar Hero with Johnny on an idle afternoon — and snippets of knowing humor. The inane questions Johnny entertains at a press junket, which range from his workout routine to post-global colonialism, are depressingly accurate (take it from someone who’s asked them). Later, when he sits with his head encased in goop for an hour to make a latex mold of his face, the scene is played both for its comic absurdity and, when he sees the results, intimations of mortality.

Watch the trailer for Somewhere:

Marie Antoinette (2006)

Most of us know the story of Marie Antoinette, though this film is less biopic than exploration of a life of wealth and teenage excess. Marie Antoinette won an Oscar for Costume Design. Here’s the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

Biopic of the beautiful Queen of France who became a symbol for the wanton extravagance of the 18th century monarchy, and was stripped of her riches and finery, imprisoned and beheaded by her own subjects during the French Revolution that began in 1789.

Carina Chocano, writing for the LA Times, nicely characterizes the theme at the heart of this (and other) Coppola films:

Coppola has a soft spot for characters who live their lives at once cut off from and exposed to the world. And she captures the gilded-cage experience, in all its romantic decadence, like nobody else. The movie is at its strongest when it focuses on Marie Antoinette’s private, sensual world, which — as she drifts into her much-mocked Rousseau-inspired pastoral phase, in which she attempts, in her inimitably artificial way, to connect with her natural self — becomes ever more abstract and cut off from reality. Dunst’s sleepy, detached quality is perfectly suited to the character. What Marie Antoinette wants is to lose herself in a dream.

Amy Biancolli’s review for the Houston Chronicle is less forgiving of Coppola’s chosen subject:

Oh — and that business about feudalism, ignoring the hunger of a nation, losing her head to the guillotine, etc., etc. All that bother. Who cares! It has no business in a movie about Marie Antoinette, queen of rock and sugar baby par excellence. Sofia Coppola‘s latest film doesn’t much care about the sociopolitical genesis of the French Revolution, choosing to zero in on M.A.’s Imelda Marcos-scale shoe collection and 80-foot hairdos rather than the scruffy masses who overthrew the monarchy.

Watch the trailer:

Lost in Translation (2003)

Lost in Translation earned Coppola the Best Director Oscar nomination and Best Original Screenplay win, and received dozens of other nominations and wins, including the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy, and BAFTA Awards for Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

Bob Harris and Charlotte are two Americans in Tokyo. Bob is a movie star in town to shoot a whiskey commercial, while Charlotte is a young woman tagging along with her workaholic photographer husband. Unable to sleep, Bob and Charlotte cross paths one night in the luxury hotel bar. This chance meeting soon becomes a surprising friendship. Charlotte and Bob venture through Tokyo, having often hilarious encounters with its citizens, and ultimately discover a new belief in life’s possibilities.

With its success on the film festival circuit and with the award attention it garnered, it’s no surprise that Lost in Translation is Coppola’s most critically-acclaimed film. Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum says:

But much of what’s astonishing about Sofia Coppola’s enthralling new movie is the precision, maturity, and originality with which the confident young writer-director communicates so clearly in a cinematic language all her own, conveying how it feels to find oneself temporarily unmoored from familiar surroundings and relationships. This is a movie about how bewilderingly, profoundly alive a traveler can feel far from home.

Speaking of the two main characters, played by Johansson and Murray, Eleanor Ringel Gillespie writes:

What follows is a non-affair to remember, which maintains a delicate balance between friends, lovers and something ineffably greater than either. They are made for each other in a million ways, with sex being one of the lesser ones (though that tension is ever-present).

Their relationship — sometimes tender, sometimes hilarious — is the heart and soul of the movie.

Watch the trailer:

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides’ poetic novel of the same name, The Virgin Suicides was Coppola’s feature film debut, which received several nominations and an MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.

The synopsis, again from Rotten Tomatoes:

On the surface the Lisbons appear to be a healthy, successful 1970s family living in a middle-class Michigan suburb. Mr. Libson is a math teacher, his wife is a rigid religious mother of five attractive teenage daughters who catch the eyes of the neighborhood boys. However, when 13-year-old Cecilia commits suicide, the family spirals downward into a creepy state of isolation and the remaining girls are quarantined from social interaction (particularly from the opposite sex) by their zealously protective mother. But the strategy backfires, their seclusion makes the girls even more intriguing to the obsessed boys who will go to absurd lengths for a taste of the forbidden fruit.

In a review as interesting for its discussion of female filmmakers as for its actual commentary on Coppola’s film, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon writes:

What’s interesting in particular about “The Virgin Suicides” isn’t just that it was made by a woman, but that it’s a case of a woman’s adapting a novel about a group of young men’s nostalgia for the unattainable girls of their youth. In the old days, you might have said those girls were imprisoned in the male gaze. But Coppola’s picture is completely nonjudgmental about the narrators’ love for the Lisbon girls (although it should go without saying that love shouldn’t be subject to anyone’s judgment).

The picture has a feminine sensibility in terms of its dreamy languor, the pearlescent glow that hovers around it like a nimbus. (It’s beautifully shot by Edward Lachman and features a willowy score by Air.) But there’s also a clear-eyed precision at work here, almost as if Coppola subconsciously wanted to make sure she captured Eugenides’ vision, while also giving a sense of the Lisbon sisters as real live girls.

Watch the trailer: