A Kiss Before Dying (1991 Film) - Plot

Plot

The film opens with a brief glimpse of a copper refinery owned by Thor Carlsson (Max von Sydow). The metal is shipped out on Carlsson Copper trains that run right behind a young boy's house, who stares out forlornly at the tracks. The film resumes at the University of Pennsylvania in 1987. A blonde student, Dorothy Carlsson (Sean Young) doodles in her notebook during class, drawing herself being married to a suitor. After class, she changes into a more formal outfit, and runs into her friend Patricia Farren (Martha Gehman) on her way out. Patricia asks if she is going to meet her "mystery man", but Dorothy claims she is just going to meet her father for lunch.

On her way across town, Dorothy asks the cab to wait while she buys a new pair of shoes. At city hall, she meets Jonathan Corliss (Matt Dillon). The couple go up to the marriage license bureau, but it is closed for lunch. They discuss how her father would disown her if he knew what she was doing. Jonathan convinces her to wait for the office to reopen on the roof of the building. Eventually, he tosses her over the edge, taking her gold lighter and cigarettes, leaving her purse and tossing her new shoes after her plunging body. In the lobby, he mails a letter and calmly walks past her body as the crowd gathers.

Thor and his daughter Ellen, Dorothy's twin, are shocked to find out Dorothy was pregnant and to read Dorothy's suicide note, which was mailed the day she died. Ellen cannot believe that her sister would kill herself. Jonathan returns to his working class home in Pittsburgh. He has a portfolio of clippings regarding the Carlsson family and fortunes, particularly the suicides of Thor's wife and son. He promises his mother that he will make something of his life, and then he hitches to New York. He gets a ride from Jay Farraday (Adam Horovitz) who reveals that he is a bohemian drifter whose parents had died on Korean Air Lines Flight 007.

The film jumps forward four months and follows Ellen as she works at Castle House, a shelter and outreach program working to help troubled kids and prostitutes. Ellen takes off from the night shift to visit Philadelphia and investigate Dorothy's death. She meets Detective Dan Corelli (James Russo) and shows him the drawing Dorothy had made in class of her wedding. Because the drawing is dated on the day she died, and given the fact that the building houses a marriage license bureau, Ellen believes Dorothy had no motive to kill herself, and that the suicide note must have been mailed as a cover. She believes that Dorothy must have been lured to her death with the promise of marriage, and that her killer was her boyfriend.

Det. Corelli dismisses her theory, and Ellen returns to the UPenn campus, speaking with Patricia, who reveals that Dorothy had been dating some mystery man. Patricia's tip leads Ellen to the law library where she meets Dorothy's ex-boyfriend Tommy Roussell (Ben Browder). Tommy explains that he had a breakdown after his relationship with Dorothy ended, and he was out of school when she died. He remembered that she was dating a new man, and he takes her back to his apartment in order to show her the yearbook photo of the man she was dating. Ellen waits outside Tommy's building, while Jonathan silently stalks her in his car. Tommy finds Jonathan's photo in the yearbook, but as he heads downstairs, Jonathan surprises him and strangles Tommy with his belt. He types a suicide note that admits to killing Dorothy on Tommy's computer and strings his body up. Ellen seems convinced that Tommy must have killed Dorothy.

Back in New York, she gets ready for bed, when her boyfriend comes over. Jonathan has assumed the identity of Jay Faraday and begun a relationship with Ellen. The pair seem quite happy, and she has no idea who he really is. As their relationship develops, they work together at Castle House, and Jay manages to impress Thor with his ambition and good nature. Ellen and Jay marry, and he begins to work for Carlsson Copper. One day, he intercepts a phone call from Patricia, who is heading to New York because she has remembered the identity of Dorothy's boyfriend at the time that she died. Jay claims that Ellen is out of town, but arranges for Patricia to wait in her hotel room for a call from Ellen the next day at 6:30 p.m. At that time, he attacks Patricia, strangling her and dismembering her body in the bathtub. He stuffs her carcass in a suitcase, and packs it in the trunk of his car, before going out on a date with Ellen. After dropping Ellen off back home, he dumps the suitcase off of a bridge into the East River.

A police detective visits Ellen to ask if Patricia had contacted her. He is investigating her disappearance, and Ellen's name and number were in Patricia's diary. The disappearance strikes Ellen as one coincidence too many. She calls Tommy's parents and confirms that he was institutionalized at the time of Dorothy's death. She then asks Det. Corelli to reopen the investigation, but nothing turns up.

One night when she is at a bar with Jay, one of his co-workers from a burger joint back at UPenn recognizes him as Jonathan Corliss. Jay insists that he is mistaken, eventually hitting him. The incident deeply unsettles Ellen, who digs up an old UPenn yearbook, where she finds a picture of Jonathan, confirming that he looks identical to Jay. She tracks down Jonathan's mother, who explains that Jonathan died three years ago. Ellen visits Jonathan's mother in the house where he grew up, and hears about his childhood. After the mother leaves, Ellen sneaks back into the house to snoop around Jonathan's room. She finds his suitcase of clippings about her family, which also contains her sister's lighter. Jonathan has followed her back to his home, and he confesses that he killed Jay Faraday and assumed his identity since no one would miss him. He had planned to position himself in the Carlsson lineage by marrying Dorothy, but her unplanned pregnancy had meant that she would be disinherited. He unties his belt and approaches Ellen explaining that he will simply have to comfort her father as he loses another child. Ellen manages to escape, fleeing out the back of the house and up to the train tracks. Jonathan pursues her and is run over by a Carlsson train.