TO DIE FOR
A film review by Clarissa Brower
Copyright 1995 Clarissa Brower
A Gus Van Sant Movie
Summary: TO DIE FOR is a cross between black comedy and movie-of-the-week formula, starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, and Joaquin Phoenix.
TO DIE FOR starts out promisingly enough, with Nicole Kidman saying firmly that her name is *not* Suzanne Maretto (her married name), but Suzanne STONE. She pauses at just the right beat at the end of each sentence, sending the theater into laughter.
Continuing on, Suzanne's husband's sister says that when she first saw Suzanne, all she could think of was "A four-letter word that starts with C." After another snickering pause, she grins and says, "Cold, that's it--cold!"
However, the laughs run out in the first half and by the end of the movie its hard to laugh any longer. The plot begins with the vapid newswoman, Suzanne, stating with phony sincerity how sorry she is that her husband died, and how close she is to her in-laws. The cutaway explanatory scenes show how the plot developed, with each character having a chance to show what happened from their point of view.
It resembles nothing more than the Holly Hunter movie, THE ALLEGEDLY TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE TEXAS CHEERLEADER MURDERING MOM. However, that movie stays funny and biting throughout. Van Sant seems to be confused whether he wants to be funny, shocking, or heart wrenching.
Unless you've been staying away from the mass media, you already know going in that Suzanne engineered the death of her husband, although why isn't quite clear. Dillon does a great job of playing sweet buffoon Larry, who just wants a nice girl to settle down and have his babies. Clearly he chose the wrong chick, although any woman as manipulative as Suzanne could have maneuvered a profitable divorce settlement easier than her obviously doomed attempt to convince and then blame some neighborhood teens for the murder.
We see scene after scene showing how low Suzanne will stoop. After a short time, it ceases to be funny. While trying to engineer her television career from a small local cable channel, she decides to interview some teenagers at the local school for a documentary. She ends up with three, Lydia, Nick, and James, clearly the misfit kids of a misfit town.
Lydia is supposed to be chunky and unappealing. This would be more believable if they had picked a girl that looked like she would actually fill out a size 12. While none of these kids are terribly bright, James is the most vulnerable and pathetic. Nobody has ever paid attention to these kids before, so you're hardly surprised when they fall for Suzanne's manipulative charm.
The humor is long gone by the time Suzanne begins seducing James. She seduces all three kids in some fashion, but watching James fall hopelessly in love with this monster just isn't funny. Parents of teenagers should be required to watch this just to see how bad things can turn out when someone finally pays attention to a neglected adolescent.
When the movie ends, there is some justice, in a strange way, but you can't help feeling ripped off. This is the movie getting hyped to the horizon? Having just seen THE USUAL SUSPECTS two days earlier, perhaps I had less patience than usual. While Kidman, Dillon, and the teen actors do a marvelous job, good acting can't substitute for a consistent script and choppy direction.
If this were a term paper, I'd give it a C+.
-- Clarissa A. Brower cbrower@freenet.columbus.oh.us
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