Mortel rendez-vous

When Miramount High School cheerleader Kirsten Costas ran across the street from her front yard in Orinda, California in June 1984 having been fatally stabbed by her schoolmate Bernadette Protti and seeking help from her neighbor she probably had no idea that this review would be written. The way it happened was this: Randall Sullivan of ROLLING STONE Magazine wrote a moving article about the case (focusing largely on Bernadette Protti's dramatic confession to the police) that appeared in print about a year after the murder had occurred and was published with the title "Death of a Cheerleader". The story got such attention that Sullivan was hired to write a screenplay for a made-for-t.v. movie after Protti was paroled, depicting the events fictitiously. It was first aired on NBC as A FRIEND TO DIE FOR, but has also been aired on cable television, both under its original title and under the title of the article that inspired it. In the film, Tori Spelling loosely por- trays Costas as snobby Stacy Lockwood; Kellie Martin loosely portrays Protti as Angela Delveccio and Orinda is replaced with the fictional town of Santa Mira, California. The murder is depicted in the opening scene and the action then reverts to the life of Delveccio over the course of about a year. Although she firsts tries to cover up what she did, the depth and sincerity of the remorse that she eventually expresses are very moving. This film is worth watching several times.

This movie shows the extremes people will go through just to fit in! A good movie for young people to see! Movies like this hopefully will teach that bullying is wrong and unacceptable! And if you are being bullied talk to someone! Make them listen. Bullying needs to stop it's so much worse now days with cyberbullying.

Kellie Martin did a masterful job playing the role of an awkward teenage girl desperately yearning for acceptance from the "In" crowd in high school. Two scenes that totally sold me on how convincing the role of Angela was played was when Angela was being dropped off for the ski trip and, in front of the other kids, Angela's mother goes to clean Angela's face with a handkerchief. Embarrassed, Angela moves her mother's arm and storms off to collect her bag. As Angela lifts her bag, she looks back to her mother and gives her a classic "Why did you do that, mom?" look that I think only Kellie Martin can make convincing. Finally, after being initiated by the Larks, Angela and the other girls go off driving looking for guys to kiss. Angela gets snubbed as she attempts to kiss an elder gentlemen sitting in his car. Reflecting on her public humiliation, Angela has a heart to heart talk with her sister about her wanting to be someone else. Kellie Martin played the role masterfully!

I think Kellie Martin should have won an Emmy for this film. She plays Angela, a pretty but mousy-type attending a wealthy-area high school. She wants to fit in with the rich, snobby, popular crowd but is not like them herself. She comes from a large, devoutly Catholic family who "have what they need" but little else. Angela tries out for cheerleader and fails, for the Writers' Club and fails, even though she's a good writer, and this destroys her self-esteem. Add to that her wanting desperately to befriend the most popular girl in school Stacy (Tori Spelling), who is also the meanest and snobbiest, and being cruelly rejected as weird. You totally sympathize with Angela and see how she could have been driven to such a desperate act. Martin's riveting performance continues post-tragedy, as you see the guilt eating her up inside. This is truly an awesome made-for-TV movie. I highly recommend it.

"A Friend to Die For" was a very good TV movie. Based on a true story, it tells the story of a young girl who murders a more popular classmate.

Both the young leads did a great job in their roles. The story opens with the actual murder and then launches into the story surrounding it. So effective in her role as the bitchy Stacy is the always attractive Tori Spelling that you almost start to lose sympathy for her as a victim as the movie progresses. It's a big change for her from her role as the sweet, perky Doanna Martin on 90210. Kellie Martin, who is both beautiful and talented, does an equally awesome job as Angela; she is a little too shy, a little too poor and WAY too eager to fit in with the "right" crowd. As wrong as her actions were, you find yourself sympathizing with her. Although she handled her anger and hurt in a very wrong way, the emotions brought on by her treatment at the hands of Stacy (which was also wrong) were real and understandable. By the end of the movie I found myself feeling sad for everyone involved and thinking how different things could have and should have been. IT makes you wonder what went wrong with these two girls that Stacy had no respect for those different or less popular than herself and that Angela felt so badly about herself that she needed Stacy's friendship and approval to feel worthwhile.

A little research will provide you with some interesting information on the actual case. I found it very telling that a friend of the "real" Stacy (Kirsten Costas) dismissed any suggestions that Kristen and her crowd were mean-spirited bullies with the comment "She was only mean to people she didn't care about." How sad that young people today have the attitude that it is OK to mistreat people you don't like. While Kirsten didn't deserve to die and the hands of Bernadette Protti (the "real" Angela), her superior "I am better than you and therefore I shall make you an object of my amusement" attitude is far too prevalent today.