To Die For (1995, R)

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Written by Buck Henry

Based on the novel by Joyce Maynard

Starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, Illeana Douglas, Alison Folland, Dan Hedaya, Wayne Knight, and Kurtwood Smith

As Reviewed by James Brundage

Recently, the media has come to the quiet little town that I live in. One of the things I liked about moving here was that, for all intensive purposes, it was a land of the free. Free of loan-sharks, litigation lawyers. Free of pickpockets, car jackers, and murders. But most of all, it was free of media. Every time that I have experienced the media, they have done something akin to biting the hand that feeds them.

I am not altogether free to fight back and call the media a bunch of jackals due to the fact that I am a member of it myself. I am, however, free to do a retrospective of a movie that does what I cannot: bites back.

This movie is To Die For. Forget all that you hear about Oliver Stone's cult-classic Natural Born Killers being the media satire to end all media satires. Compared to To Die For, Natural Born Killers is child's play.

Natural Born Killers was clumsy. Sure, it hit the media. But, while setting the media in its sights it took a number of innocent bystanders with it. It took on violent movies; violent television, I Love Lucy, romance, and all of that crap that we really don't want to see all mixed together. Natural Born Killers is a cleaver. To Die For is a scalpel.

From frame one, To Die For takes out one thing and one thing only: the media. The first thing we bear witness to is a hoard of reporters rushing through a graveyard to the funeral of Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon), a man who his "weather girl" wife Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) is suspected of murdering. As the reporters all rush to be the first, we see one of them fall. He is trampled as the others rush right over him.

Then we see Suzanne address us directly, taking on the need to do everything on television. Our first real introduction to the character, we see from her first words that she has about as much intelligence as her dog Walter. From then on in, we get one simple thing: a pure, vengeful media satire.

The plot of the movie is that the girl that does the local weather in Little Hope, Connecticut has had her husband killed. Why? Reason number one, she wants fame and he doesn't care for it. Reason number two, she knows that killing him will get her a little attention. Attention is basically all she wants. As Suzanne is fond of saying, nothings worth doing if people aren't watching.

Suzanne, a pampered girl who's never been told no, decides to kill her husband and enlists the help of three juvenile delinquents to do it. There's Jimmy Emmett (Joquain Phoenix), who she seduces with her body, Lydia Mertz (Alison Folland), who she seduces with dreams of Hollywood, and Russel Hines (Casey Affleck), who she seduces with money and some new CDs. Controlling them perfectly like pawns on a chessboard, she sets them in place to do her dirty work, all the while trying to end up famous.

To Die For doesn't just use a great plot to propel it into the position of the best media satire to date... it enlists a great sense of dark comedy to make us laugh at how unbelievably stupid Suzanne is. It gives us a great set of memorable characters. The traditionalist husband (Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon)). The father in law with mob connections (Dan Hedaya). The incestuous father (Kurtwood Smith). The ice-skating idiot sister (Illeana Douglas).

It also gives us one of the best styles of storytelling. Gus Van Sant takes his camera in and takes the media out from the inside, filming the movie as if it were a PBS documentary. He edits in interviews with Jimmy and Janice Maretto (Douglas). Shows us a talk show where the two families share their sides of the stories. Contrasts this with the dark story told by a sociopath Suzanne. He ends us with a bang.

In one of the best shots ever, he shows us the one girl who hopes to be famous getting to tell her story and getting her dream. It has her being put into split-screen after split-screen... until you get the sensation that she is everywhere.

To Die For takes the media out back and beats it to death, keeping a smile on everyone's face all the time. For people like me, who are fed up with the spiel that the networks keep handing down to us, this is a movie for you to enjoy.