Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) is a weather reporter at her small-town cable station, but she dreams of being a big-time news anchor. However, she feels that her middle-class husband (Matt Dillon) is holding her back, so she decides to have him murdered. For this, she enlists Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), a high school boy who is enamored with her. The plan doesn't work exactly as she intended, though, and her husband's family starts to suspect that she was involved in his death.