Highs & Lows: Sofia Coppola

 by Patrick Bromley

So much more than just a nepo baby.

Before making her feature directing debut in 1999, Sofia Coppola was famous for two reasons: 1) she is the daughter of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and 2) she deliver a much-maligned performance as Michael Corleone's daughter in her father's 1990 sequel The Godfather Part III. By the end of the decade, however, she had mostly silenced her critics by proving herself an accomplished filmmaker and has gone on to continually demonstrate what a unique and singular voice she is in the modern cinematic landscape -- her movies feel almost always feel like they couldn't have been made by anyone else. Now an Oscar-winning filmmaker in her own right, Coppola has established herself as one of the premiere auteurs of the 2000s. Here are some of her highs and lows.

High: The Virgin Suicides (2000)

Sofia Coppola starts her career with one of her best movies, an adaptation of the 1993 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides about five sisters in 1970s Michigan who cast a spell (not literally) over the boys in their high school. Haunting and gorgeous and achingly melancholy, The Virgin Suicides examines adolescence through a gauzy haze of misplaced nostalgia -- a memory of how things were rather than what they really were, which makes the tragedy at the end all the more shocking and awful despite being right there in the title. I'm not sure there's a sadder image in Coppola's filmography than that of Kirsten Dunst (in her first collaboration with the director; it would not be her last) waking up along on the football field after spending the night with BMOC Trip Fontaine. The moody score by French electronic group Air and the cinematography by Edward Lachman help to announce Coppola not just as a supremely talented filmmaker and someone who appreciates aesthetic beauty but also as someone with remarkable empathy and sensitivity. 

Low: The Bling Ring (2013)

I know there are some who accuse Sofia Coppola's films of prioritizing style of substance, a criticism with which I have never agreed -- except maybe in the case of The Bling Ring, Coppola's weakest and most hollow film. I know, I know: the hollowness is part of the point because this is a movie about vapid and entitled socialites who begin robbing houses simply because they're bored and have never had to face consequences for anything in their lives. I think there's a movie here and I think Coppola could have been the right person to make it given her understanding of aesthetics and privilege. Unfortunately, everything about the Bling Ring is surface and not completely in a way that was intended. For a filmmaker who's usually so willing to investigate the movie's themes of privilege and alienation, this movie seems strangely uncurious about its own subject matter.

High: Somewhere (2010)

If Sofia Coppola has a movie that can be considered her most underrated, it's Marie Antoinette. And maybe Priscilla. But also this one, which I suspect a lot of people would put in the "lows" column of her filmography even though it doesn't belong there. One of a few movies she's made about fathers and daughters (or father figures and daughter figures), Somewhere gives Stephen Dorff his best role in 20 years as a successful actor attempting to connect with his daughter (Elle Fanning) during an indefinite stay at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. While the movie could be accused of being Coppola's most insular and navel-gazing -- it's all about Hollywood boredom and being stuck at a specific point in your life both geographically and existentially (it's like Lost in Translation that way) -- it's also deeply personal and affecting.

Low: On the Rocks (2020)

Coppola's On the Rocks, which barely feels like it exists as it was made for Apple TV and released during COVID, isn't a bad movie, just one that feels formulaic in a way that none of her other films do. An autobiographic story (it has to be, right?) about a daughter (Rashida Jones) and her sometimes absentee father (Bill Murray) coming together to sus out if Jones' marriage is over, On the Rocks reads and often feels like a generic studio comedy drama. A real StuComDram. The performances are good because of course they are (it's nice to see Marlon Wayans getting a good role in 2020 as the husband Jones suspects of being unfaithful), but they're in service of a formulaic screenplay. I can appreciate Coppola's desire to make something more commercial, but she sacrifices what makes her so singular in the process. She's so much about vibes. On the Rocks has no vibes.

High: The Beguiled (2017)

Ok I know I said that Somewhere is Sofia Coppola's most underrated movie but I'm changing my mind because it's this one: her 2017 remake of the Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood movie The Beguiled. Reimagining the 1971 film about a macho, toxic man that everyone wants to fuck as a movie told from the point of view of the women in the story, Coppola's update does just what a remake should do: it takes the basic premise of the original film but places it under a different lens, imbuing the same story with different meaning and new authorship. Shot on 35mm film using only natural light by French cinematographer Phillippe Le Sourd (who would go on to shoot Coppola's next two films as well), The Beguiled is one of those "every frame a painting" movies that's almost achingly beautiful in its compositions. Coppola was awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival (becoming only the second woman in the fest's history, because progress) and then the movie was hardly talked about upon release. It more than doubled its budget at the worldwide box office but feels like a forgotten film, which is unfortunate because it's among her best.

Priscilla (2023)

I want to make sure that this one is included over more obvious titles like Lost in Translation (hit) or Marie Antoinette (hit) for somewhat selfish reasons: it's really only represented on our site by Rob's review and he really didn't like it, whereas it's one of my favorite movies of 2023. The world is a rainbow! From its opening moments in which a young Priscilla Presley's feet touch the floor to its ending in which she finds the courage and maturity to walk away from Elvis (set to Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You"), this is a movie about what it means to be a woman, not just on a personal level but in terms of societal expectations and projections. I love it not only because it presents a Hollywood biopic as filtered through Coppola's sensibilities, but also because it's a great movie.