To Die For

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman), a young woman from a small town, wants to realise her dream at whatever cost: to become a famous TV personality. She is dissatisfied with her marriage to Larry (a role by Matt Dillon) and embarks on her great career plans by worming her way into a job at the local TV station. She decides to make a documentary about young people with the aid of three children who don’t have many hopes for the future. She develops a powerful and dangerous bond with Jimmy, Russell and Lydia. In the end, things get so out of hand that the allegedly idyllic life in the outer suburbs becomes a nightmare when her ambition turns into an obsession. In this black comedy we see America through the eyes of a woman driven by blind ambition as she drowns in her weird view of reality. It is the first relatively well-budgeted film by the idiosyncratic American director Gus van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho), who did not write his own script on this occasion.