To Die For (1995) on Netflix
Suzanne Stone of Little Hope, New Hampshire, wants to be a broadcast correspondent. She marries Larry Maretto and pushes her way from an office job onto the air at the cable station.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.8/1061,098 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
At the WWEN cable station in Little Hope, New Hampshire, Suzanne Stone holds down office work while angling for a place on camera. She wants to become a famous broadcast correspondent, and she goes by her professional name rather than that of her husband, Larry Maretto, whose family runs a restaurant. Larry would rather she settle into being a wife and mother, though he backs her career. Her boss, Ed Grant, gives way to her persistence and puts her on the evening weather report. Janice Maretto, Larry's sister, trains for the Ice Follies and says little in Suzanne's favor, and the couple's parents give their own accounts. Three local teenagers, among them Jimmy Emmett and Lydia Mertz, agree to appear in a documentary Suzanne is making about them.
Cast
- Maria Tuccias Angela Maretto
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about To Die For (1995)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Meg Ryan was the studio's first choice for Suzanne Stone but turned down a $5 million salary because she felt a villainous role clashed with her romantic-comedy image; Nicole Kidman then lobbied director Gus Van Sant for the part and took it for $2 million.
- The film's source novel, Joyce Maynard's To Die For, was loosely based on the facts that emerged during the trial of Pamela Smart, a school media services coordinator imprisoned for seducing a 16-year-old student and convincing him to kill her husband. The trial was one of the first in the U.S. to allow TV cameras in the courtroom.
- Matt Damon read for the teenage part and impressed Van Sant in his audition, but was considered too old to play a teen and to have too much of an "all-American" look; the role went to Joaquin Phoenix, whom Van Sant had known from working with Phoenix's late brother River on My Own Private Idaho.
- Sandra Bullock, Janeane Garofalo, Jennifer Tilly and Ellen DeGeneres all read for the role of Janice Maretto before Illeana Douglas was cast in the part.
- For one of the film's roles, Matt Damon recommended Casey Affleck, the younger brother of his best friend, Ben Affleck.
- Katherine Ramsland of Crime Library discussed the film as a relatively rare example of media displaying women with antisocial personality disorder, calling Suzanne a "manipulator extraordinaire" who harms people through third parties; an article in the journal BMC Psychiatry instead found traits of narcissistic personality disorder.
