In the Cut

A woman teaching English gets involved in a murder investigation. The police officer leading this investigation is instantly attracted to her. Also, from her point of view, this officer incorporates all she loves in her poetry and literature: rough and manly but also protective. She immediately feels this is an opportunity for her to put into practice all she has read about.

Out of her usual environment she finds it dangerous but also feels the excitement of the moment.

Quite cliché all. It is a simple detective story. The characters remain shallow. There is not depth in them and they do not evolve in any way.

I thought Jane Campion would do a much better job. Alas, even she makes mistakes.

What really annoyed me were all the references to "To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf. All this quasi literism makes this film swanky.

I rated this movie a 6. Disappointing for Jane Campion. But not the worst movie I ever saw. There were some nice shots.

Boring, just plain boring. It's all I can really say and all that needs to be said.

Even the thought of seeing Meg Ryan in more than some cutesy romantic role was painful. This was just a boring story with some sex scenes and lots of pointless dirty talk sprinkled in. It moved through the system like a octopus stew.

Jane Campion needs to keep shining all those awards she got for The Piano, because if she does any more like this, it will be all she has to look at.

Mark Ruffalo? What a waste. And, what is with this guitar-playing detective? Don't they have work to do.

This was just a waste of film.

Meg Ryan gives what may well be the breakthrough performance of her career in 'In the Cut,' a violent, erotic thriller from maverick filmmaker Jane Campion. Ryan plays Frannie, a college English instructor who is instinctively drawn to the seamier side of life. When women in her Manhattan neighborhood start falling victim to a grizzly serial killer, Frannie, as a possible witness, becomes a prime source of interest, both professionally and personally, for a homicide detective named Malloy, who has some troubling sexual proclivities of his own to deal with. Attracted by his edgy darkness and smoldering sexuality, Frannie succumbs to his advances, fully cognizant of the possible danger he represents. Is the law enforcement official as much of a threat to this young woman as the psychopath going about town decapitating and dismembering the local ladies? It is this kind of moral ambiguity that informs the entire movie.

From the very outset, Campion makes it clear that we are not in for a conventional police procedural. She is obviously more interested in character and mood than in the niceties of a well-oiled plot and streamlined exposition. Frannie is far from being the helpless victim or plucky heroine one usually finds at the center of such tales; she is a complex, moody, taciturn woman who seems to be drifting passively through life, with little passion, conviction or purpose to make any of it worthwhile. Even when it comes to her sexual obsessions, it often feels as if she is just going through the motions. It is hard for us to get a bead on her, for she is a perfect reflection of the world she inhabits, a world without a clear moral compass - so much so that we often don't know what we are supposed to think of her or the other people with whom she comes in contact. The script plays up the sense of dislocation by having characters appear and disappear seemingly at random throughout the movie, sometimes serving as little more than red herrings for both the story and Frannie's life. This often makes it so that we in the audience feel clueless as to where exactly the film is headed and what the overall purpose of it really is. It's often hard for us to get our bearings, yet, it is this very ambiguity, this sense of being rudderless and confused, that lifts the film above the tired conventions of the genre. In fact, the film is at its weakest when it concentrates on the intricacies of the plot - the resolution is remarkably mundane - and at its strongest when it merely records the eccentricities and passions of its two enigmatic characters.

The sexual content of the film is highly charged but not overtly offensive, with one glaring exception, at least in the 'unrated' version (I assume this does not apply to the version released to theaters). Early in the film, we are treated to a graphic, hard core close-up of an act of fellatio that clearly is not simulated. Consider yourself forewarned.

Ryan has never been better than she is here. She plays Frannie almost as if she were one of the urban walking dead, just right for a modern woman who feels no real emotional connection with the world and the people around her.

Mark Ruffalo is excellent as the cop who may be more of a threat to Frannie than the killer who's terrorizing the area. Almost as an afterthought, Kevin Bacon makes little more than a cameo appearance, overacting in the role of Frannie's stalker ex-boyfriend.

'In the Cut' is a subtle little mood piece that is more about observing behavior than it is about searching for a killer. Those looking for an intensely plotted thriller may not be as intrigued by this film as those searching for a psychosexual character study. It's the atmosphere and the performances that count in this film.

In fact, much of Frannie's allure is that she isn't shy about her body, or even afraid to engage in sexual activity with Detective James Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) in her two room apartment on Washington Square…

In the Red Turtle bar, Frannie (Meg Ryan) inadvertently watched a man, with a tattoo on his wrist, receiving oral gratification from a girl with blue fingernails having diamonds in them…

Soon after, there was a homicide in Frannie's neighborhood… The body of the woman, or part of her body, to be exact, was found in the garden outside her window…The girl who was murdered was Angela Sands with the blue fingernails …

As the psychopath strikes again and again, Frannie embarks on a powerfully physical sexual relationship with Malloy, despite her rising suspicions, later on, that the serial killer in question may very well be the 'good cop' with the 'three of spade' she saw once…

Meg Ryan plays a very interior character living out of her unconscious emotions and actions, seeming always scared of what she wants… Her only passion was poetry… Her former lover Kevin Bacon— mentally unbalanced—thinks he should stick around because he slept with her twice… Bacon maintains a threatening presence throughout the whole picture… Jennifer Jason Leigh— exquisitely sexy— graces the screen as Frannie's half-sister Pauline… In his few scenes with Ryan, Sharrieff Pugh proves to be sweet and charming but also bad and scary

Many people out there do not understand the difference between the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar. After all, if the director is responsible for making sure all the elements mix well together, then surely Best Director should be the same as Best Picture? Well that is not quite the case, as far as I understand it. The writing of the film, or the story itself, is at least the main thing that a director does not have complete control of. There are other elements too of course. But the reason why it is so hard to explain the difference to people is that it is rare to come across a film that is well directed but nothing much else. However, 'In the Cut' is an example of such a film.

The plot is a thriller about some serial killer who is killing young women. Sound familiar yet? However there is a (pseudo) erotic romance involved too. Our protagonist is an outgoing female, but yet one with weaknesses. The storyline revolves around a primarily sexual relationship that she starts with a detective investigating the case, however all along she suspects that he is the killer, because she saw someone with the same tattoo receiving oral sex from one of the murder victims. I won't reveal the rest of the plot, which may sound slightly original, but yet I can reassure you it is quite hackneyed in the execution.

The film is based on a novel written by Susannah Moore, which I am yet to read, and after seeing the film adaptation, I am in no mood to. Campion takes to writing the screenplay, but helped along by Moore. In 1993, Campion did a superb job writing 'The Piano', for which she received a well-deserved Oscar. The characters in the film were all interesting and well developed, and the story was no difficulty to understand. It was also quite original. The material for this movie however revolves around a familiar plot that has a thriller element. More time in the script is dedicated therefore towards the thriller – and romance – aspects of the story, and less towards the drama. That's not to say that the characters are poorly developed or anything, but it does not help. The main problem with the writing of the film is the story itself. It has so many familiar elements and at times it is predictable and clichéd.

The acting is not much better than ordinary either. Ryan has a few good moments, but is often over-the-top. The rest of the cast is, well, satisfactory, but nothing special, give or take Kevin Bacon. However Bacon's character is perhaps the most questionable one of the lot. So if the writing and acting in the film is ordinary, can it be a great film? Not really. How then, one might wonder, is it well directed? Campion is a very good director. She knows exactly how to direct a film to give it the right atmosphere and make it look good. In the Cut is one of the best-looking thrillers I've seen of this decade. As in 'The Portrait of a Lady', Campion demonstrates an acute eye for colour and light in the film. The execution is very polished. On a surface level it does not look like a cheap Hollywood film. It does not look like a vehicle for Ryan or any of her co-stars. Kudos especially goes to Campion's vision of the flashbacks used in the film, which are reminiscent of the vignettes Kidman's worldwide voyages in 'The Portrait of a Lady'. Even Campion's use of black and white aids the visual style.

This is certainly one of the most unique films I have come across, but I don't say that in an overly positive manner. It is a very good-looking film, and ignoring camera angles and editing techniques, it still looks very solid on a visual scope. There is plenty to admire about Campion's direction of the film, but under this polished surface that Campion has created lies an ordinary, predictable, clichéd and only semi-interesting thriller. It is a film worth seeing to admire Campion's craft as a director, but the film is otherwise rather unrewarding, though it surely will still keep one watching until maybe the last ten minutes.