At night, baby-face Laura (Thurman) dresses up as a vamp and lets random guys at bars pick her up, just to drug and rob them later. But then someone starts stalking her, and a person close to her is killed.

This odd little b-grade film begins with an incredibly awful first scene but gradually builds up through its middle stages to something with surprising resonance. Unfortunately the shabby ending destroys any good work that was done. The director seems like he'd rather be making a character study than a thriller, and while his characters are ultimately lacking, it's his inept skills at directing thrills that really bog the film down.

The story follows Laura (Uma Thurman) who seems to be some sort of bottom of the barrel model but makes most of her living by charming rich men into taking her out only to drug and rob them. She also spends time with an older man called William (Paul Richards) who is somewhat of a father figure to her. He seems to be attracted to her because of her resemblance to his lost daughter, but it seems he hides a terrible secret.

Meanwhile we are introduced to Sid, played by Paul Dillon with all the grunting incoherence of Sly Stallone on an off day. Sid - who Laura is letting stay at her place - spends most of the movie looking around for some guy named Johnny, with the plan to start up a band. No one seems too keen to help young Sid though, not surprising really, he's a total dork. Sid is a very ill defined character, perhaps he is supposed to be mysterious so that we are suspicious of his intentions, but it's pretty clear from early on that Sid will not be the source of Laura's problems.

Sid does finally find Johnny, who turns out to be played by the king of cameos himself, Steve Buscemi. Johnny is a pathetic creature indeed, and Sid never does start up that band. Our heroine Laura is herself quite the dismal soul. She lives by herself and gets drunk to pass the time. She's someone with such low-self esteem that the line "you're not as bad as I thought you were" is enough to get her into bed.

It's during these middle stages of the film, as we follow around the completely mundane and deadbeat collection of characters introduced to us, that director Ily Huemer actually begins to achieve something. He builds an interesting tone of despair and hopelessness with his depiction of people at the bottom rung of the big city. He paints his city in a dim, hazy, surreal way, seemingly attempting to replicate the mood of Scorsese's Taxi Driver (there's even a scene with a peculiar taxi driver). He actually succeeds to a certain degree, the film becomes quite affecting for a while and there's an amusing injection of black humour.

But just as it's getting interesting, Ily Huemer is obliged to return to the thriller format. Laura's seedy lifestyle catches up on her when her kooky mother is killed. It turns out that William had a rather more unwholesome interest in Laura than he let on. A few twist are thrown in and we end up in an apartment with William and Laura supposedly in a life and death struggle that comes across more like two drunks trying to find their beds.

Kiss Daddy Goodnight show's signs of quality but Ily Huemer just can't quite deliver on his good ideas and it's a shame that the truly bad last act overshadows the films better moments.

Uma's Performance

This was of course Uma's first film role and despite being limited by the dodgy material she shows sure signs of the talent that would later develop in better roles. It's a low-key performance, and she struggles to find anyone to work off in the rest of the cast (Dillon is particularly weak) but Uma is always believable, and has some genuinely affecting moments.

She adds some nice touches to Laura, such as the way she talks down to William as if she's doing him a favor to just be spending time with him, and the arrogant way she seduces her victims. Laura is in a form of self-denial about how unhappy with her life she really is by asserting a kind of fake superiority over those she meets. Laura is so desperate for a bit of real love and attention that she settles for the dumb lug Sid.

The fact that Laura is an interesting character and the clear highlight of this film is almost entirely down to Uma's perceptive and subtle performance. Even in her very first film she demonstrates her capacity for uncovering layers of complexity in a character. Despite the faults of the rest of the film, this was a very good start to Uma's career and it's no suprise she quickly rose in the ranks after it. It was good practice more than anything, certainly better than playing Venus, even in a great film like Baron Munchauson. Kiss Daddy Goodnight is well worth seeking out for devoted Uma fans.