hyped garbage

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

"To Die For" is a great little gem of a movie that, in my opinion, ranks as one of the best dark comedies of the 1990s. Nicole Kidman, in one of her finest performances, is stunning as Suzanne Maretto - her maiden name is Stone - a completely self-absorbed, amoral, and utterly ruthless young woman who will let nothing stand in the way of her obtaining her goal of being a "television news star". The film is shot in the style of a slightly wacky TV documentary, which only adds to the fun, as we see the "post-tragedy" interviews with those who were involved with the late Miss Stone. Stone is an attractive but cold-blooded blonde in a small New England city who is desperate to become a celebrity on a national TV News Network.Other inspired performances include George Segal in a splendidly cynical cameo, succinctly summarizing TV business reality. But the real sleeper is Illeana Douglas, narrator and Ms. Stone's sister-in-law. She smells a rat long before anyone else, and her wise-acre sarcastic delivery is terrific, especially as she gracefully skates over the evidence. That's cold! The movie seemed to move all over the place at points for no logical reason. Because of the somewhat jarring approach the ending seemed to be a forgone conclusion. This movie, featuring an unnerving performance by the late River Phoenix, was chilling, haunting, beautiful, and absolutely brilliant. Van Sant is certainly capable of greatness, and Kidman is also.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

To Die For (1995): Dir: Gus Van Sant / Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, Illeana Douglas, Casey Affleck: Exhilarating and stylish drama about control. Suzanne Stone dreams of fame and captivates everyone as the new weather woman. She marries Matt Dillon but his desire for a family threatens her dreams. While conducting a presentation she seduces three students into murdering her husband resulting in grief and betrayal. Stylishly directed by Gus Van Sant who previously made Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, and he is backed with a smashing performance by Nicole Kidman with charm and sarcasm. She speaks directly at the camera trying to convince us and perhaps herself that she is the victim, but her crime bore consequences. Joaquin Phoenix plays a student guided by lust without realizing where he is headed. The reality of this is too severe when dealing with self esteem issues and the need to belong. Matt Dillon plays her husband who desired the American dream and had it vanquished. Casey Affleck plays one of the students with a low self esteem who is easily led by the influence of a hottie like Kidman. Illeana Douglas steals scenes as his sister who speaks to the camera before descending on ice skates across a lake that marks another meeting place. Intriguing film about damaged lives led by the illusion of fame. Score: 8 / 10

Nicole Kidman is such a good actress that, even in 1995 which was early in her career, she was able to carry a film that had very little plot indeed and no suspense since we knew from the very start that she was confessing a crime and the real killer, James, was in prison paying for the crime. We also knew the victim very fast because it was obvious anyway. And the end is what she deserves in the world of direct justice of retaliation. And yet what makes this film something more than just a plain tricky entertainment?The first thing is the woman this Nicole Kidman is personating, Suzanne Stone Maretto. That woman is a sociopath and apparently no one sees it. What's more she is an exhibitionist and everyone is blind to it. She marries for the money and the connections (with the Italian mafia). She is only in love with one single individual: her dog, and nothing else. She dares go to a high school class for some talk with the students and she sits on the teacher's desk, more or less facing the students with a mini-skirt (at eye level for the sitting students) that definitely does not reach under half her thighs. And no one, not even the teacher, tells her anything, discreetly of course, but that would seem necessary, especially in 1995, and though Monica Lewinsky was not yet an affair that kind of soft-cum-hard exhibitionism was not exactly kosher, at least in schools.Her desire to be on TV was an obsession and her mafia connections due to her marriage were naturally an argument understood by everyone without anyone having to mention them. So she got her two minutes of TV time at the highest of all peak hour time: the supreme prime time, the weather forecast.The second thing is the vision given in hat film of teenagers. Three are picked as the only ones we'll see, hence they are asserted as being representative, and in their class practically no other student is really visible, I mean shown in any way. Teenagers are easy to manipulate for sure, especially when they have penises that are bigger than their brains. Suzanne Maretto turns them into victims in one single instant and each one is the accomplice of the others. She picks the one who has the least brain and she has her puppet on her strings. The most surprising element is that no one seems to see anything nor to care – if they see something. The third thing is the fact that she manages to go through the whole assassination of her husband and the police and justice procedure unharmed because she tells a tall tale about her husband being addicted to cocaine to which the teenagers she has manipulated had introduced him, and they became feral when he decided to drop the habit. It is a pure lie but she can manage to get it through as if it were holy water or Saint Emilion wine. What's more she manages to practically have a press conference on the steps of the police station or court when she is apprehended for questioning. The cops are by far more lenient than they should be. You can beat about the bush as much as you want but something is fishy in this community (that reminds me a lot of Twin Peaks, echoed by "Teens Speak Out") where an unknown woman who marries the son of a mafia family is a social climber and gets her TV time that makes her locally famous, and from this moment onward she can do anything she wants even the most incredible capers and everyone let her do it and go on to doing more. Her blabber about "America, liberty and all the rest" is nearly an insult to the public who takes the tone of the declaration as a true American heart-deep truth and belief.Is it the very dark, octopus ink dark sense of humor of Gus Van Sant that makes all that incredible fable believable? Probably, plus the mesmerizing presence of Nicole Kidman and her partly denuded body under her mini-skirt probably that defuse any kind of inclination to protest. Give them the thighs they like and you can tell any kind of rant: they will accept it and believe it.A great actress in spite of all in a rather unfathomable rave-movie of the rave-party family. I loved the TV destroyed with a bat as if we were in some game of mailbox baseball.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Suzanne Stone Maretto (Nicole Kidman) is a TV weathergirl and an infamous tabloid sensation suspected of enticing teenagers Jimmy Emmett (Joaquin Phoenix), Lydia Mertz (Alison Folland) and Russel Hines (Casey Affleck) to kill her husband Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon). She is driven and would stop at nothing to achieve fame. His sister Janice (Illeana Douglas) didn't like cold Suzanne from the start.It has the noir style with characters doing interviews with the camera. Director Gus Van Sant has more style than a simple narrative. Talking directly into the camera adds to this dark comedy. It is the performance of Nicole Kidman that is the most interesting. She can be sweet and innocent in one moment. Then she's manipulative and ambitious the next. She delivers one of her best performances ever. It is a dark indictment of the modern obsession for fame.