Ever since her auspicious debut Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola’s filmmaking career seems to have been focused around exploring a firmly defined set of themes. She has been equally interested in humanizing and commenting on the behind-the-scenes side of celebrity as well as the rather fundamental notions of girlhood and, later on, womanhood. Some would perhaps divide her portfolio into two distinct subsets, thus separating the seemingly outlying Marie Antoinette and The Beguiled, but it is – at least from where I am sitting – a mistake to do so. This is because there is, after all, a single connective tissue keeping all of her work together – her recurring obsession with trying to understand and discuss loneliness.  

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