To Die For: Critic Reviews

As Jimmy, the teen sap who falls hard for Suzanne, Joaquin Phoenix is dead-eyed yet touchingly vulnerable -- a mush-mouthed angel.

An irresistible black comedy and a wicked delight.

To Die For endows Nicole Kidman with her career role to date, and one that only an actress with her porcelain features could even attempt.

Though it may seem less individualistic, less personal than Van Sant's past work, you can feel his sensibility and his talent in every frame.

The delicately featured Phoenix (yes, River's brother) has an extraordinary, chic-oddball presence.

Nicole Kidman's work here is inspired. Her clothes, her makeup, her hair, her speech, her manner, even the way she carries herself (as if aware of the eyes of millions) are all brought to a perfect pitch.

If, like me, you find things to admire in all of Gus Van Sant's early films, you may be especially gratified by what he's done with a satirical anti-TV script by Buck Henry.

To Die For has its share of truly delicious sequences, and some biting dialogue worth killing for.

Although Van Sant makes wicked sport of television, he doesn't underestimate its power to blind us to its faults and bring us to our knees.

A grotesque black comedy.

A smart and wicked delight

It's highly recommended.

Like Roseanne, Gus Van Sant refuses to compromise his trademark smarty-pants assault on storybook America.

A mean-spirited satire, told in mock-tabloid style, this film features the best performance of Nicole Kidman to date (better than The Hours for which she won an Oscar), as an amoral small-town girl obsessed with becoming a TV star.

Gus Van Sant directed this sharp black comedy about the obsession with television and celebrity culture.

Wicked, Wonderful and Wonderously performed

If you've hitherto failed to respond to the laid-back oddball appeal of Van Sant's movies, fear not: this is a sharp, consistently funny blend of black comedy and satire on the deleterious effects of television.

Exquisite media satire, as good as "Network" in its way.

razor sharp