This October, the Criterion Channel is celebrating all things death and murder, be it fantastical or otherwise. Indeed, amid its new collections, one can find a curated program of movies that reflect the idea of True Crime in some way or another. Gus Van Sant's pitch-black comedy To Die For is one of those films. The story of an ambitious weather girl with aspirations of TV fame who manipulates teenagers into killing her husband was a breakthrough for Nicole Kidman back in the mid-90s. After years of being systematically undervalued by audiences and critics alike, the actress got immense critical acclaim and came close to an Oscar nomination…
Our understanding of Nicole Kidman's Suzanne Stone is fragmented from the very beginning, long before a puzzle of testimonies further refracts our perception. The opening title sequence prepares the audience by introducing the protagonist through the facsimiles seen in magazines, newspapers, and newscasts. They are salacious spectacles of printed polemic, a media dream of a murderous mastermind crossed with a bimbo caricature. Yet, even when the movie's self-tape-like framing device manifests, Kidman's face filling the white void and talking directly to the camera, get a sense that it's as authentic as those glossy covers.
It's easy to see that she's performing, making the distance between the real Suzanne and us grow ever larger. Take how she talks as if stuck in a perpetual pitch meeting. Every interaction is another chance to sell herself and to promise a toxic French vanilla fantasy. And yet, Suzanne is not a good liar, nor is she a good actress. Of course, Nicole Kidman is a master of cinema, but she plays Suzanne as a terrible liar and unconvincing manipulator. She's creepy rather than endearing, her gestures so ingratiating they reveal insidiousness. But then, revulsion bleeds into awe for the audience, for Kidman rather than for Suzanne.
The actress is the one in control and with the star quality, carefully effacing those qualities from her screen presence to play this movie monster. Notice that Suzanne's less persuasive than she might realize. Her weather girl act is somewhat stilted, for instance. Vexing intensity bends the saleswoman-like vocal cadence out of shape, so much that one can taste the character's need to impress. Suzanne says nobody ever says no to her, but she goes about as if possessed by an animal fear that someone will. It's a killer's cold confidence mixed with a wannabee celebrity's irrational insecurity.
One would expect this type of character to look immaculate and infallible. However, Suzanne's got as many cracks as she has shiny surface. Those gaudy suits and Barbie face drip with desperation, naked expressions of her hunger that contradict the woman's presupposed slyness. In other words, she wants to project an idea of sophistication, but her attempts never work. Suzanne Stone is failed seriousness, a monument of toxic camp. Moreover, she's ruthless beneath that mask of pink naïveté, like a bottle of Pepto Bismal laced with strychnine. That the gaggle of teenagers played by Casey Affleck, Allison Folland, and Joaquin Phoenix is fooled by her is more of a testament to their innocence than her genius.
With them, she uses sex as her preferred weapon, and Kidman performs the routine with sinister predation. Each morsel of attention and erotic fulfillment is a vacuous service the TV personality exchanges for murder. It's not merely that affection is transactional in Suzanne's worldview - everything is, and she'll be the winner of all deals in the business of living. By the end, those high schoolers are the only people she dominates over, the only ones she can bargain with and keep her upper hand. Kidman shows the awareness of this dynamic in how the protagonist moves around them, an adult looming over children. It's sickening and not in a good way.
The performance turns more standardly evil as Suzanne's plan unravels, manipulations growing increasingly deranged while her façade grows in paradoxical confidence. Before, she felt like someone running away from failure. After the murder, Kidman portrays her as an individual savoring success, a lion licking its claws to taste the blood of a fresh kill, getting drunk on the sanguine ambrosia. It's an expected turn, more commonplace than the remaining work, but Kidman's visible dedication to the grotesque role never wavers. She bites into the viciousness of Suzanne, illustrating the hypnotic pull of the TV cameras, the orgasmic trance their gaze elicits. To Suzanne Stone, infamy sounds like applause.
In retrospect, Kidman has delivered performances with much more finesse than this one. Still, there's no denying that her blunt approach works like gangbusters, signaling her stardom from within a black hole of fame-hungry inhumanity. The best way to appreciate it, though, is to see the big picture and not lose oneself in the garishness of individual moments. When we get too close, all we see is an amorphous mass of dots, bold impressions that are sometimes overwhelmed by their mercurial corniness. Instead, one needs to step back and consider the totality of the work, the pointillistic pop art mural of absolute insincerity that Kidman and Van Sant have painted for our pleasure.
From its Cannes premiere up until Oscar nomination morning, Nicole Kidman won plaudits left and right for To Die For, positioning herself as one of the big contenders of the season. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical and the inaugural Critics Choice Award. BAFTA also recognized her work with a nomination, as did the New York Film Critics Circle, the Saturn, and the American Comedy Awards. Additionally, Kidman received several trophies from critics' organizations, including the prestigious BSFC prize for Best Actress. All things considered, the actress achieved mountainous precursor support, much more than a lot of other Almost There cases.
That year, the Academy's chosen five were Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking, Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas, Sharon Stone in Casino, Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County, and Emma Thompson in Sense & Sensibility. Sarandon won the gold after dominating the early 90s with four nominations in five years. While it's difficult to surmise who was fifth in the lineup, Stone's lack of precursor support beyond a Golden Globe victory and her film's lack of other Oscar nominations makes her out to be the most likely possibility. Martin Scorsese's leading lady never again caught AMPAS' attention, but Kidman would only grow more celebrated after this snub, winning her Oscar for The Hours.
As mentioned above, To Die For is newly available on the Criterion Channel. It's also streaming on Hulu, and you can rent it on various other platforms.