SPOILERS ALERT - In your opinion...
... did the character of Suzanne, for all her flaws and imperfections, really deserve to die at the end of this movie?
And what was the film trying to say here, thanks.
Been a while but I loved this movie so I will chime in.
She had her husband murdered. She cheated on him by sleeping her way up the corporate ladder, and also with Jimmy. She manipulated weak teenagers. She told lies to the media about her husband (who she killed) to get fame. Suzanne was a terrible person. If she murdered my child I would feel justified in having her killed.
The movie is called To Die For, which has a double meaning to me. The saying 'to die for' can be defined as to be strongly wished for (she had a body to die for), and also 'you'd be willing to die for this or that.' Jimmy was willing to kill to be with Suzanne (he'd die for her), and Suzanne wanted to be a famous broadcast journalist (a life to die for).
The messages I got were don't be so focused on fame, how impressionable teens can be, and how the media exploits everything.
Fair enough.
By the way, in 1995 there was also another film released, that I even reviewed on YouTube and spoke a lot about, that has a similar title to this, only its called "Someone To Die For" (1995) and its title also had more than one meaning in terms of who that someone was, either his daughter that got killed when he was confronting that killer or that lady journalist or that attractive but troubled character Lydia (played by Shell Danielson, who also co-wrote the script for that movie).
Also, in that film, minor spoilers, it also had a female character, the aforementioned Lydia, who later was revealed turned out to be troubled with a particularly troubling past, and in that film, despite some of her wrongful deeds, I actually felt sorry for her and even more than that...
The scene where she "confronts" that cop and (I won't go into details, to both avoid spoilers and spare disturbing details) does something wrong to him whilst threatening to kill him and reminisces about her troubled past, IT LITERALLY MADE ME CRY, I'm not kidding, and I thought in films I've seen it all. And yes I was against her actions there but I still couldn't help but feel sorry for her overall.
And to be honest, I didn't want her to suffer or die in that film well either, see it and you'll probably understand. You might even draw some parallels between her character and Suzanne from here.
Was Nicole Kidman's character in this movie a (female) villain or, in pure cinematic terms, an anti-heroine (a female anti-hero), in your opinion?
Interestingly enough, I lean towards the latter more than the former.
Also in this movie, before all that happens in the end, we are not supposed to see her as a villain but more like an ambitious character etc. She even came across as likeable in many scenes, some even had disrespectable characters around her etc.
But then - that man was a mafia hitman as well, who knows how many downright INNOCENT people he may have killed as part of his "job" also, far from a saint himself wouldn't we agree?