Product: To Die For (1995)
Rating: 4.0
NICOLE DOES NASTY
Gus Van Sant's deliciously dark comedy features a "killer" performance from Nicole Kidman. Kidman won the Golden Globe's Best Actress in a Comedy award and righteously so. She plays a devious, cunning and psychopathic young woman who will do anything to assure her success as a broadcast star. She weds a gullible Matt Dillon who wants nothing more than to settle down, have kids and run his father's nightclub with Kidman's undivided attention. Aha--Kidman has other plans for her future. She persuades via sexual favors another gullible man, this time a teenaged Joaquin Phoenix (in a remarkably good performance) to help her get rid of Dillon so she and he can go off to California to make television history.While the territory is somewhat familiar, it is Kidman's on target performance that elevates this dark little comedy to its heights of excellence. George Segal has an uncredited cameo as a t.v. exec who lets Kidman know what she needs to do to succeed, and good support is also garnered from Dan Hedaya, Casey Affleck and Holland Taylor as well.TO DIE FOR is a cynically engaging little dramedy which established Kidman as an actress to watch out for.