Five exquisitely beautiful sisters dazzle and beguile the boys around them in this movie, set in the mid-1970’s. Amid the idyllic suburban stillness, there are intimations that all is not right. Huge elm trees are diagnosed with Dutch Elm Disease and ordered to be cut down. And the youngest of the Lisbon girls, only 13, tries to kill herself. The doctor shakes his head, “You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” She looks up at him, sadly, wrists wrapped in white gauze, “Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a 13 year old girl.”

A quarter of a century has passed, but the boys who longed for the Lisbon sisters cannot forget them. They hold on to relics and totems: a diary, scribbled notes decorated with hearts and stickers. And they tell each other over and over the events of that time, hoping that this time they will make sense.

There is no explanation for the unthinkably terrible act, and the movie does not try to provide one. Like the boys, we pore over their lives, looking for a point at which they might have made a different choice.

First-time director Sophia Coppola, who also wrote the screenplay, based on the book by Jeffrey Eugenides, has a wonderful eye for detail and composition. The production design is perfect in every detail. There are painfully accurate moments as teenagers try to make conversation (“How’d your SATs go?” “You’re a stone fox!”) and connection (when the boys finally call the girls on the phone, all they can bring themselves to do is play records to them). The narration, beautifully read by Giovanni Ribisi, is lyrical and moving. But ultimately, the movie falters. It tries for metaphor — those dying elm trees, an asphyxiation-themed debutante party at which people wear gas masks decorated with glitter, the girls as princesses in a tower waiting for princes who cannot save them. And it tries for distance from its time or milieu. But like the collection of ephemera the boys hold onto for years, the movie has “not life, but the most trivial list of mundane facts.”

Kirsten Dunst is marvelous as the most adventuresome of the girls, and Josh Hartnett is fine as the high school hunk with a broken heart for every puka shell around his neck.

Parents should know that the movie’s theme may be very upsetting to teen-agers, some of whom may think it suggests that suicide is a romantic and powerful response to overly strict parents. In addition to the overall theme of sexual longing and repression, there are some sexual references and situations. One character smokes pot constantly (he is shown as an adult in a treatment center for substance abuse). Teenagers smoke and drink.

Families who see the movie should talk about what has and has not changed since the 1970’s, about why the girls were such an endless source of fascination for the boys, about why the response of the community seemed so heartless to the boys, and, of course, what could have led the girls to take their own lives and who, if anyone could have prevented it.

Other movies about the anguish of teenagers coping with longing and frustration include “Splendor in the Grass,” “Picnic,” and “Lucas.”

This is a check-your-brain-at-the-door, dig into some popcorn, sit back and enjoy summer explosion movie, brought to you by the same folks who did “Con Air.”

Nicolas Cage again stars as the good guy in a bad world, this time a reformed car thief named Memphis who has to get back into the game to save his brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi). Kip reveres his older brother’s mastery of the Zen grand theft auto as a Zen art form, but he also resents him for walking away from that life and from his family. Kip is supposed to steal 50 cars for a very mean guy with an English accent and a passion for woodwork. When Kip blows it, the baddie tells Memphis that he has to get the 50 cars in four days, or Kip goes into the car-size trash compacter.

What that means is that (1) we get comfortable cheering for the car thief, and (2) it turns into one of those movies that helpfully gives us a countdown (“72:00:00 hours to deadline”) as we see him put it all together.

Part of the fun is that the movie gives us bad guys (the car thieves) who must deal with worse guys (a gang that thinks they should be the ones to get this steal-for-order assignment) and an even worse guy than that (the threatening wood-lover and some off-screen heroin dealers). Then there are the good guys (cops Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant) and the not-so-good guys (homicide cops who think car theft is unimportant).

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has this formula down cold: top acting talent (Oscar-winners Cage, Angelina Jolie, and Robert Duvall, along with rising star Ribisi and the sensationally talented Lindo), some snappy dialogue, a cool and clever hero, and lots and lots of chases, all done with such panache that even a “my dog ate it” plot twist doesn’t derail things.

Memphis and the cop both long to capture one elusive prize. For Memphis, it is “Eleanor,” the ‘67 Mustang he never managed to steal successfully. For the cop, it is Memphis himself, the one thief he never managed to catch.

Memphis says that he never did it for the money – “I did it for the cars.” He and his gang all love cars so deeply that as they go out to steal, they banter back and forth about TV car trivia, naming the make and model of any car ever driven on a sitcom or detective show. That gang includes former love Angelina Jolie, who doesn’t have enough to do, but does it well, looking very fetching in blonde dreadlocks. When she blows a kiss with those bee-stung lips, the audience lets out a collective sigh.

Parents should know that the movie includes strong language, sexual references and situations, and lots of tense scenes and explosions. Families who see the movie will want to discuss how the way that the movie “disinfects” the hero-thief by giving him (1) a good motive, (2) a commitment to going straight, (3) even worse bad guys, (4) loyal friends who demonstrate that he is worthy of respect and affection, and (5) a resolution that seems fair to everyone. They may also want to talk about how vulnerable everyone is to crime, and how to protect themselves and their property.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Con Air” and “The Rock” (warning: both are more violent than this one).

Part Woody Allen-style mid-life crisis movie, part old-fashioned, door-slamming bedroom farce, part “let’s laugh as rich folks mess everything up while we enjoy looking at their beautiful homes and clothes,” and possibly part therapy session for leading man Warren Beatty, this movie is ultimately mystifying.

Beatty plays architect Porter Stoddard, who seems to have it all. He has a beautiful wife, Ellie (previous co-star and onetime Beatty girlfriend Diane Keaton), who is successful in her own career as a decorator, and he has beautiful homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons. He has two attractive children, and if he is not entirely thrilled with their romantic partners (one does not speak English and one has a tongue stud), his attitude toward them is one of benign neglect. The Stoddards have just celebrated their 25th anniversary in Paris with their very best friends, Griffin (Gary Shandling) and Mona (previous co-star and onetime Beatty girlfriend Goldie Hawn).

But things are about to fall apart. Mona discovers Griffin checking into a bed and breakfast with a redhead, and she leaves him. Porter begins to wonder what he has been missing in 25 years of monogomy, and has a one-night stand with a cellist (Nastassja Kinski), has sex with Mona, and has almost-affairs with two other women, all of whom end up in the same ladies’ room at a black-tie event. There are many, many near-misses, which are supposed to be funny but are merely painful, before Ellie finds out, which is even more painful.

Porter has a near-affair with Eugenie (Andie MacDowell), a woman who thinks her stuffed animals are real and likes to have them simulate having sex. She takes him to meet her wealthy parents (Charlton Heston and Marian Seldes). Her mother crashes into things with her motorized wheelchair, screeching at Heston about his sexual inadequecy in the most explicit terms outside of a porn film, and Heston comes after Porter with a rifle for trifling with his little girl.

Rumors of problems have plagued this movie for at least two years, and some incoherence and inconsistency may be evidence that it has been recut. It is momentarily fun to watch these actors in these settings, and especially welcome to see a movie featuring stars over 25. But the characters never engage us. Ellie and Porter both seem so self-absorbed that it is hard to care whether they stay together or not, and there is something grotesque about the way the charmless Porter is immediately adored by every young, beautiful woman who sees him. Jenna Elfman is wasted in a small role, though she does look great dressed as Marilyn Monroe. There are some funny moments, but overall the movie will appeal most to those who are in the demographic of its performers and not much even to them.

Parents should know that the movie includes extremely explicit sexual references, sexual situations, brief nudity, and very strong language. A character has problems telling the people close to him that he is gay. The subject of the movie is adultery and some, but not all, characters pay a price for infidelity.

Audiences who see the movie should talk about their views on fidelity and resisting temptation.

Audiences who like this movie will also like “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy,” written and directed by Woody Allen.

“Amélie” is filled with whimsical charm the way that a chocolate soufflé is filled with air.

Amélie (Audrey Tatou) grows up the lonely child of parents who do not know how to show their love for her. She becomes a thoughtful, quiet, observant girl who decides to change the lives of those around her, opening hearts to the adventure that is waiting for them, taking revenge on a cruel grocer, bringing together a couple who are afraid to show their longing for each other, and bringing the outside world to a reclusive painter and to her own father. But will she do for herself what she has done for others and find love with the mysterious collector of rejected photo booth pictures? And who is the “ghost” who appears in so many of the torn photos?

Writer-director Jean-Pierre Jeunet gives the story a feeling somewhere between fairy tale and documentary. His behind-the-scenes glimpses of the characters’ likes and dislikes – from cleaning out a toolbox and getting fingers pruny in the bath to sticking a hand in a barrel of grain and cracking the sugar on a crème brulée — are deliciously particular and somehow very touching. Audrey Tatou is just right as Amélie, a perfect gamine in a Lulu haircut.

Parents should know while the movie is like a fairy tale, there are some graphic moments. One character works in a porn shop, and we see him surrounded by sex toys. There are comic but explicit sexual situations. There is a reference to suicide and a child’s mother is killed in an accident.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Amélie wants to help people from a distance and is reluctant to show herself to the man who attracts her. Why do so many people need outside help to find happiness? Is there someone you would like to help?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy another Parisian fantasy, Zazie Dans Le Metro.