Critical of acting, directing, and whole film .

Rating: 3/10 (5 June 2000)

This film starts with the basic handicap of both leads being undeniably pretty, but utterly lacking in cinematic sex appeal. One of the reasons Kidman was so well cast in "To Die For" was the frigidity and detachment she brought to the part of a woman using her sexual charms to get where she wanted. Add to this Cruise's lack of talent - to the extent that in some of the scenes when he was meant (I think) to be in an extremely emotional state, I honestly found it hard to tell whether he was laughing or crying, and in a scene where he sits in the back of a taxi, there is almost a voice-over saying "Look at me; I'm brooding!" True, there are lots of remarkably gorgeous women's rears, and some fronts, and some inevitably unrealistic sex, but I was left not only sharing most other critic's bafflement at what the picture was trying to say, but why on earth it was trying to say it - whatever IT was.