Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 20-March-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium

To Die For (1995)

People in the know say it's harder to make a good comedy than a good drama. Accepting that this is true, I imagine the hardest comedy to make is the one that reflects its audience in an uncomfortably negative light and still manages to entertain. "To Die For" does just that, and it's not merely good, it's great. Adapting a sordid real-life tale with a pitch-perfect note of hilarious misanthropy, it exposes our modern ills while rising to the challenge of filmmaking at its best.

Written by Buck Henry and directed by Gus Van Sant, "To Die For" actually transcends any particular genre, resembling nothing so much as an erotic horror flick from the wacky mind of Tim Burton (and not just because of Danny Elfman's wonderful soundtrack). The film treads the thinnest of lines between hammy farce and lurid morality play and miraculously maintains its balance for a full 107 minutes. At the forefront of this feat is Nicole Kidman, who simply has to be seen to be believed. As go-getting, small-town weathergirl Suzanne Stone Maretto, she piles terrifying narcissism upon comical dimwittedness and tops it off with loads of blonde sex appeal. The film uses an interesting mix of styles, cuts, and POVs to tell her story, which begins sweetly with marriage to an Italian lug (Matt Dillon) and turns dangerous when she starts to resent him for standing in the way of her world-class career.

Suzanne's ambition is to live out her life on TV, the only place that matters. In pursuit of this goal, she engages three teenage losers to serve as documentary subjects, but as her bitterness grows at home they evolve into tools of a wicked plan. Dismissing the leader of the pack (Casey Affleck) as a delinquent who can easily be bought, Suzanne targets the lumpish doormat Lydia (Alison Folland) and gentle nitwit Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix) as prey for a more subtle kind of manipulation, eventually seducing the latter into such a fever of hormone-driven adoration that he's willing to commit murder. The combined intellect of the foursome is far from enough to devise the perfect crime, however, and they eventually run foul of the law and other forms of justice. (It must be noted that while Kidman earns her Golden Globe, Phoenix should have received a special Oscar, an honorary Ph.D., or a lifetime supply of beer for this performance.)

"To Die For" is one of the funniest movies ever made, full to the brim with unique scenes that evoke groans, glee, and the occasional bit of sympathy for how stupid people are (e.g., Suzanne's first lesson on sexual maneuvering in the workplace, Jimmy's reaction on hearing his dick is bigger than his brain). But it also delivers a biting social commentary even more trenchant in the context of today's reality-show craze than it was in 1995. Perhaps it's time for another movie to dissect the contemptible, spotlight-grubbing, two-bit desires of people like Suzanne — although I doubt it could be done with such darkly delicious satire again.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.