Pink Asparagus

7/10

You’re not anybody in America unless you’re on TV. What’s the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody’s watching? And if people are watching, it makes you a better person… 

Gus Van Sant’s To Die For is a woman led true crime thriller following Suzanne Stone as she juggles her ambition for a television career and her… traditional marriage. She works at a local news station as an ambitious assistant, who eventually goes into hosting the evening news. She dreams of becoming a well-paid, well-known, successful TV journalist, who flits around the world covering story after story, and looking hot while doing it. Suzanne’s husband is a nice guy who works at his father’s restaurant and wants her to have babies! He’s best at sitting on his chair in front of the television after work, and talking to his family about what his wife should do with her life. Suzanne brushes away their expectations for as long as she can, but it eventually becomes clear that she’ll either be pursuing her career or her husband.  

If you wanted a babysitter, you should’ve married Mary Poppins.  

Nicole Kidman plays a determined, manipulative and unempathetic Suzanne, reminiscent of Diana Christensen in Sidney Lumet’s Network. Both Suzanne and Diana want to work in TV but need to hurdle the fact that TV broadcasting and a career in general, are for men. Suzanne decides that if she’s going to be a serious journalist, she needs a serious piece. She uses her charisma to recruit a few outcasts from her local highschool, for a piece that uncovers the real thoughts and feelings of teens. Her first recruit, Jimmy, is a 17 year old boy who is head over heels for Suzanne….If you’re looking for a gripping, interesting flick led by Nicole Kidman in an iconic role, watch this right away…  

SPOILER BELOW! What you need to know about the ending…

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The ending is wild. Suzanne and the teenage Jimmy become lovers, and she manipulates him into killing her husband, Larry. On Suzanne and Larry’s one year wedding anniversary,  Jimmy shoots Larry while Suzanne is delivering the evening news. It is a brilliant move sans the part where she manipulates a minor into a life sentence in jail… Jimmy is convicted immediately. Since they’ve done a sloppy job of hiding evidence, their affair is also found out, bringing Suzanne to the heart of the investigation. Then, Larry’s dad has Suzanne killed. The final scene shows one of Suzanne’s outcast teens, on TV, reiterating Suzanne’s sentiment that “You’re not anybody in America unless you’re on TV”. The lesson seems to be that putting a career in TV before morals is wrong, evil. Early in the film, Suzzane goes to dinner with a big name in TV broadcasting. The man tells the story of a famous woman who launched her career by giving him a blowjob. Suzanne gasps, and the man runs his hand up her thigh, suggesting that she do the same. Considering moments like this, the ending makes me sad. Part of me wanted her to get away with the crime, to use it as an opportunity to hurdle the man’s advances and make it into TV. The last time we see Suzanne, she is dead  and floating under the ice of an outdoor skating rink, looking upwards, under the glass ceiling, trapped in a man’s movie in a man’s media industry, eyes wide, all her file folders of ideas nowhere to be found.