Review of To Die For (1995) by Brad N — 05 Jul 2008

After further thought, I docked this one a couple of points. The current score is almost entirely dependent on Kidman's performance. It shows just how important the story is for a movie, and this one blew it.

The ending was extremely disappointing. Unlike countless films portraying strong, independent, even sexually aggressive women as both deranged lunatics and/or they get punished in the end. In this case, she gets whacked by--to make matters even worse--a mobster connected to her father-in-law.

That's not it...then they show that the girl portrayed as "lesbian" is likely to follow in her footsteps. Similar to films portraying whites as the victims of nonwhite violence, in this one (like AMERICAN BEAUTY) men are the victims of "independent" (euphemism for nasty) women.

In this flick the victims are Kidman's husband, played by Matt Dillon, and Joaquin Phoenix, who Kidman seduces him to kill Dillon. Only difference from BEAUTY was that Bening's character didn't actually kill her husband, though she apparently was about to.

She was beaten to the job, however, and was nonetheless punished by giving her overwhelming grief at the end. All in all, the flick is worth taking a look at, concerning it's supposedly Kidman's best performance, but don't expect too much of it beyond that.