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Living in the Dead: Sacred Companionship in Sofia Coppola’s Films
Of alleviated loneliness and messages unheard.
With 2024 marking the 25th anniversary of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, this year heralds a quarter of a century that Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter has spent behind the camera. In that time, Sofia Coppola has crafted and cemented for herself a reputation as a veritable maverick of loneliness and isolation.
With many a film-goer lauding Sofia Coppola’s portrayal of that invisible wall that seems to form between our true selves and the rest of the world, Coppola’s movies inevitably also offer moving portrayals of the weight and promise of companionship.
When I first delved into Coppola’s work, I was intrigued by the perceived “trilogy of isolation” — how many fans describe her Marie Antoinette (2006), Lost in Translation (2003), and Somewhere (2010).
Yet, if these three movies comprise Coppola’s most moving, most heart-wrenching portrayals of loneliness, I’d argue LiT and Somewhere, along with The Virgin Suicides make up their own sister-trilogy of sacred companionship.
