Product: To Die For (1995)
Rating: 5.0
The tabloid tale was never this funny
Nicole Kidman in 1995 at last emerged from under the shadow of her husband Tom Cruise with this movie. If anyone ever doubted that she was just another pretty face, if she didn't have a smig of talent, this was the movie that launched her officially into critical and popular acclaim. I wonder if the real people it was based on had anything to say about it?Nicole Kidman's character, Suzanne Stone Maretto, is based the antics of a New Hampshire woman in the early 1990s. Pamela Smart, like her counterpart on the opposite coast, Mark Kay Letourneau, was a teacher who had an affair with one of her students. As opposed to Letourneau's crime, having sex with a minor because she was in love with him, Smart manipulated her teenage lover to murder her husband. Smart was tired of her marriage. Suzanne, although portrayed as far more ambitious and having much more sophistication than Smart has, is equally unhappy with her marriage as she feels her husband is holding her back from her career wants in television. Taking three disadvantaged teenagers under her wing to film a documentary (as Smart did with an orange juice commerical project with her charges), Suzanne lures Jim, played with equal aplomb and skill by Joaquim Phoenix (who also emerged from under the shadow of his later brother, River), into her bed. Young, inexperienced, and with plenty of white trash around the edges, Jim and his two friends are brought into her plot to murder her husband. Once caught, Suzanne denies the whole thing.The sense of comedy in this movie, however, is what made it. While one one hand it could have been a fleshed out version of the American Justice episode, it was made out to laugh at ourselves as well as the people it was about. The three kids are stupid, yet ernest in so many ways, and while they are trashy they did want acceptance from others. Her husband's family, in particular his sister Janice, is a conflict to hers and they hide a thin layer of resentment towards this atypical match for Larry. All the other characters (her coworkers at the TV station, the convention people she meets in Florida, etc.) are just as much fascinated by her as they are taking advantage of her. And Suzanne herself. Cold, calculating, and ambitious who won't let anyone stop her from getting to the top; yet, she is not all that bright and knows she has to use her body just as much to get the things she wants.Based on the outcome of the movie as well as the real events, I did leave me wondering what if. After all, Suzanne said it best. She said she is a professional person who comes from a good home and background, the three kids are trailer trash. Who do you think a jury's going to believe?A great movie, ironic and sad and funny.