To Die For
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Movie Reviews of To Die For
Movie Review: Season of the Witch
Summary: 4 Stars
In contrast to "Direct Cinema" (a documentary style in which the filmmakers do not involve themselves in the action- the camera being all seeing and unobtrusive-even hidden), "Cinema Verite" permits the presence of the camera to make a difference in the reactions of those being filmed. Both documentary styles allow a degree of narrative freedom not permitted by the conventional Hollywood-style of a chronologically ordered series of dramatic scenes.
The unique feature of "To Die For" is the use of both the "Cinema Verite" and the conventional narrative styles in the same film. Van Sant inter-cuts a traditional dramatic storyline with simulated documentary style commentaries by the principal characters. The commentaries are not just retrospective, they jump around in time and it is not entirely clear the order in which the interviews took place. Four years later "Drop Dead Gorgeous" would be made entirely out of simulated interviews.
The interplay of the two narrative styles in "To Die For" is critical to the advancement of its theme about the contrasting public and private faces each of us constructs. The irony is that the faces presented in the documentary interviews are much more human and revealing than their counterparts in the dramatic scenes. Perhaps not surprising given our "camera whore" compulsion, these characters are guarded and private when interacting with each other but liberated, open, and out-there when being interviewed.
The most interesting aspect of all this is the plausibility of Kidman's character. At times Suzanne comes across as narcissistic, manipulative, complex, and sophisticated; at other times shallow and naive-dumb. This contrast is because to Suzanne every waking moment is an on-camera moment, yet she is only vulnerably human during her actual on-camera moments. She embodies, to an extreme degree, feelings we have all had in smaller and more subtle ways. She simply lacks the skill and/or desire to conceal them. Almost everyone has encountered someone who, while a skilled manipulator, is utterly clueless as to the transparency of their motives to everyone but the person being manipulated.
Kidman's performance is inspired. Her clothes, her speech, her makeup, her hair, and the way she carries herself all make for a unity of complete self-absorbed superficiality. Suzanne pities us mere mortals - not because we are mortal but because we are not her.
The producers seem to have gotten a little confused about just who was their target audience, which would account for the film's poor performance at the box office. Although not exactly "high-brow", the movie is obviously geared to a relatively sophisticated audience who can relate to black comedy, parody, and its psychological message. But instead of giving their film a unified style (which consistently connects to that audience), they throw in a lot of crude humor and gross cartoonish behavior more appropriate to a teen comedy. Their target audience and even the type of teens who might enjoy this movie are more put off than amused by this stuff.
Which gets into the issue of trimming. The pace of the film is a little slow and the scenes where Suzanne seduces James are embarrassingly moronic and unconvincing; although the seduction dance is exceptional. If they trimmed 10-15 minutes from the middle of the film it would have better unity and would move along faster. The seduction angle would work better if kept off screen, there is enough explanation of these events in the various retrospective on-camera interviews. And they should lose some of the Buck Henry crazy teacher stuff-it works once but then becomes repetitive and unfunny.
Illeana Douglas is wonderful as Suzanne's disgusted sister-in-law, who closes the film skating on the frozen lake containing Suzanne's body as the credits roll and Donovan's "Season of the Witch" plays. Very cool!
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Movie Review: "To Die For," a Non-Linear Social Satire of Dark Proportion
Summary: 4 Stars
Nicole Kidman is excellent here as "Suzanne Stone-Maretto," the central hub of a two-hour-long blonde joke called "To Die For" (1995). It just may be Director Gus Van Sant's best film. If the film's darkly straight-faced humor weren't so blantantly bust-out-laughing obvious in its dialogue, the screenplay would be as dark as a noir film with Kidman as the story's femme fatale for everything happening in it. The film's non-linear narrative goes between normal story-line scenes, "afterwords" regarding the incidents in summary, and a scene having the in-character, narcissistic Kidman staring straight into the camera as though the audience were being brought straight into the film's narrative. Also bringing the audience straight into the film's narrative is a talk-show scene with both the parents of "Suzanne" and the parents of her husband, "Larry Maretto." This has the added effect of heightening the need for recognizing the wake-up, distress call on society, particularly involving the current television media which is what the film comments on directly. Even though the film was released in 1995, its point is just as relevant today, maybe even more so.
It seems universally perfect as a comment on narcissism, schizophrenia, and psychological superficiality, here developed dually as a social object, perhaps even mass paranoia--recognizably using sexual overtones to provide at least part of its exploitation--and the implications of a pseudo-social mentality of acceptance-through-denial by consumers who don't recognize it. The more sex, the more reality t.v., the more Jerry Springer rednecks the film utilizes, the more it reveals the dirtiness of what people enjoy watching. The film here is standard intelligence training in psychology, and justified, because it pulls away the curtain showing a much darker image than an audience expects or knew existed. Appropriately, it is Critic Rex Reed of the New York Observer cited in bold on the back of the DVD case: "Humor, tragedy, sex--this movie has everything!"
Matt Dillon plays "Larry," the newly-wed husband to "Suzanne." Dan Hedaya plays her father-in-law, "Joe Maretto," and Kurtwood Smith plays her paternal father, "Earl Stone." It's easy to see how she and her biological father have certain character traits in common.
The side-story of "Suzanne" documenting the lives of three adolescents, two of them played by Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck (Ben Affleck's brother), comes center-stage later in the film when the point for having this side-story becomes apparent. Its relevance to the whole of the film's statement furthers the film's theme--that tabloid talk shows exploit and distort the normally private lives of typically poverty-level citizens, provoking them into things like violence, not only metaphorically but also directly, out of the interest in such things brought on by television consumerism. One of the non-linear elements has the parents of both "Suzanne" and "Larry" on a tabloid talk show, and it's no different than watching Jerry Springer. For this and other non-linear scenes, the film restrains itself from fully providing the reason for them until the film's very end as though it were reserving a joke's punchline.
Movie Review: Hysterical and Wicked
Summary: 4 Stars
"You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV," says the woman who thinks of herself as being "like Lady Di before she dropped the prince and went nudist." *To Die For* is Nicole Kidman's crossover film, taking her from "wife of" status, to a major A-list actress. The first time we meet her character, Suzanne Stone, loosely based on the real-life Pamela Smart, we are made aware that she is the most self-absorbed woman on earth. From offering unwanted beauty advice to her future sister-in-law (which includes the leading statement that Gorby would have done better in Russia "if he'd had that big purple thing taken off"), to admitting that she was like Jane Pauley ("but we don't have to struggle with the weight problem like she does"), we are served up a delicious character study of a conniving and deeply superficial young woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her dreams of international attention. Meeting Larry (Dillon), a handsome down-to-earth guy who falls hard for her, she takes him "from Van Halen to Jerry Vale," according to his sister Janice. Janice, who skates "the Peggy Lipton part in an ice skating tribute to the Mod Squad", provides the voiceover that tells the story. Life with Suzanne isn't quite as fairytale-ish as Larry planned it - when he brings up the subject of children, she cuts him off with, "If you wanted a babysitter you should have married Mary Poppins". Suzanne realizes the marriage is a mistake, but uses the opportunity to further herself. Dressed to kill and clawing her way to the top, Suzanne insinuates into the lives of three disenfranchised teens -- kids who would not be able to tell you what their aspirations were even if they knew what the word meant, whom she gratuitously practices her powers of manipulation on. "The road we chose to travel on was paved with many speedbumps," she tells them, as she involves them in her scheme to murder her husband. Besotted with this glamorous figure, the teens do as she commands. In one of the most hysterical scenes in any movie, Kidman's character has a record player brought to the funeral and she mourns to the song "All By Myself" in front of the assembled crowd. But, of course, over time, the close-knit group unravels and under ceaseless pressure from the authorities, they begin to crack. Alison Folland, as the young teen girl, has a heartbreaking and hilarious confrontation scene at the mall with her monstrous mentor, and she nails the character of the confused adolescent perfectly. Van Sant's direction is quirky and lively, and more than a bit sarcastic. In scenes such as the masturbation fantasy, and skating over the pond under which the body is frozen, Van Sant (*Drugstore Cowboy* and *Private Idaho*) is at his best visually and conceptually, and has created a complex and compelling film that sets forth immensely disturbing issues, but also manages to be a comedy that is both hysterical and wicked.Movie Review: Portrait of a Female Psychopathic Narcissist
Summary: 4 Stars
To Die For is an excellent, detailed portrait of a female narcissist. This movie is no comedy. If you ever have the great misfortune of tangling with one of these psychopaths, trust me, you WONT be laughing.
Nicole Kidman plays Suzanne Stone, the girl who grows up as the center of her family's never-ending attention, the Golden Child Who Can Do No Wrong. As life goes on, Suzanne hones her manipulation skills, and marries Larry (played by Matt Dillon), who reflects back to Suzanne the image of herself that she wants to believe and see. Perfect!
That is, until Larry demands that the marriage include him. In bed one morning soon after being wed, Larry wants to make love with Suzanne. She icily shoves his hand away saying "get your hands off me." She has to get ready for work, to "fix my face" for the world. It's performance time, and Suzanne is always on. Larry just doesn't get it. Their life is about HER, not them. When Larry broaches the topics of having children and her helping him out in the family restaurant business, Suzanne decides he has to go. This girl has global aspirations. She won't be marginalized with motherhood and a family business!
When Suzanne lands a job at a community TV station, she turns a small job fetching coffee and running errands into her role as the weather girl reporting from "The Weather Center." She soon executes one of her many grandiose schemes: making a documentary about high school teenagers in their natural habitat. Enter Joaquin Phoenix's character Jimmy Emmet, an introspective but deeply lost teenager who falls hard for Suzanne. She soon sexually manipulates Jimmy into doing her bidding, with promises of eternal love and "then we can always be together." Her blinding charisma engulfs Jimmy and friends Russel and Lydia, and of course she heartlessly kicks them all to the curb the instant she achieves her goal.
If you know anything about narcissism, you'll see all the high points in To Die For: grandiosity, complete disregard for the feelings of others, ice-cold manipulation, and lightning-fast betrayal once the narcissist has achieved her goal. You're seeing how a psychopath operates. If only the narcissists of the world found the same fate as Suzanne Stone. I strongly recommend To Die For.
Movie Review: La Femme Fatale- So Foxy It Hurts So Baad!
Summary: 4 Stars
You would fall for and hate Suzanne Stone ( Nicole Kidman ) at the same time. Fall for her because she is so wickedly original, creative in a way, hardworking, ambitious, foxy, shining, teasing, exciting, hypnotizing, beautiful, blah blah blah. Hate her to the black bone because she is the determined type of girl who would just literally do anything in order to make her very own version of personal American dreams come true! And she' s not afraid to get somebody To Die For it, if it means her Andy Warhol-esque 15-minute fame will just keep lingering on and on...forever. Period.Synopsis: Suzanne Stone ( Nicole Kidman ), an ambitious, hardworking, pragmatic, sexy small town TV weather girl, who dreams of making it nationwide big in front of TV screen, is steadily climbing up her professional ladder to success quite the same way a hit single doing the magazine US single chart. Only a small, snack-deal problem occurs- Someone' s got to die for it! " Hey! C'est la vie- the survival of the fittest," she thinks.
Dark, ironic, thought-provoking, sometimes strange yet , above all, entertaining for every single minute, this comedic Film Noir directed by one of the most unique, talented 20th -century directors Gus Van Sant and ably portrayed by the great cast including Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix, et al, is so wickedly delicious, interesting and entertaining that it will keep you watching repetitively for the second time in a row.
Nicole Kidman at her very best in her all-American, award-winning classed performances as the wicked, foxy Suzanne Stone, is so hot, foxy, teasing, charming, manipulative, shrewd, cunning, et al that the character serves as one of the most typical Femme Fatale type of the 90's.
A few words of wisdom for any of us who ever comes across with any real-life Suzanne Stone ( if such a character exists )- K-e-e-p T-h-e D-i-s-t-a-n-c-e !
Enjoy- Shin