In the Cut

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.

Half-baked, underwritten crime drama-cum-sexual thriller has Meg Ryan playing mousy English teacher in NYC attracted to a handsome homicide investigator on a serial murder case, one that has left body parts in Ryan's yard (and yet this barely fazes her!). Sub-plots involving Ryan's half-sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh, trying hard with a bad part), ex-boyfriend (an unbilled Kevin Bacon), her students, her job, and her fetish for the English vocabulary go absolutely nowhere. Meg, trying for an understated seriousness--but mostly just looking unhappy--gives a fairly brave and intriguing performance, and it's interesting to see her in these jittery, sordid surroundings, but the plot is alternately off-putting and curiously morbid; it's a fascinating misfire. Nicole Kidman co-produced (and perhaps was in line to star in the film herself), but Ryan does as good a job as any actress might have in the role. **1/2 from ****

In The Cut is one of those films where you'll sit and watch with a certain amount of puzzlement. It's a film that is unsure of whether it wants to be a mystery thriller with sexual overtones, or a provocative story about erotic sexual liaisons with a suspense thriller tossed in as the side salad. It doesn't work on either level.

Franny Averey (Meg Ryan) is a New York English teacher who has this strange habit of collecting words. She collects them off subway signs, from conversations, billboards or wherever they may happen to pop up. She does this because she says it is her passion. Now you may be wondering what this word collecting has to do with the story. The answer is nothing. It provides us no insight into Franny's character, and is nothing more than one of those odd character traits given to someone for no reason other than the fact that it makes them look quirky. I only bring it up because it is mentioned often in this film with no point or relevance as to why and it clearly demonstrates why so much of this film ends up being a pointless melange.

Fran also has a sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and their relationship is one of the few good things about the film. They talk as sisters who are close would, confiding intimately with each other and offering advise when needed. The problem is that Pauline's character is as murky as Fran's. She has an obsession with some medical doctor, lives over a strip club, and hangs around with the prostitutes that inhabit the premises. Pauline and Franny are two wild and crazy gals alright, but don't count on figuring out why.

One morning before heading to teach her English class, Franny stops at a local bar to meet and converse with one of her students Cornelius Webb (Sharrieff Pugh). From what I could figured out, she meets Cornelius because he has a new slang word for Franny to add to her word and phrases collection. Either that or they've had sex at some time or another. We are never told for sure. Perhaps Director Campion felt that if we knew for sure Franny was having sex with a student, it would sully her as a sympathetic character, although everything else she does in this film would be enough to degrade even the worst street corner hooker in any big city. At one point she travels down to the dark basement to use the Restroom, and in the shadows finds a woman performing oral sex on a man. Although it is very dark, and she watches from a distance, Franny sees a tattoo on the man's hand, but is unable to see anything of his face. Call it Creative Lighting 101.

It isn't long before Det. Malloy, (Mark Ruffalo)stops by Franny's apartment investigating the fact that some woman had lost her head, literally, in Annie's yard. There is supposed to be some underlying sexual tension between the two, but I never felt it. That must have come later that evening when Franny is lying in her bed having sexual fantasies about the good detective. We are never clued into why she is attracted by him. Malloy is a foul mouthed low class basic Neanderthal, and Franny is supposed to be educated and intelligent. I suppose some would call what Franny does as slumming.

It goes without saying that that eventually Franny and Malloy end up in the hay together in a steamy sex scene where Meg sheds her clothes and her girl next door image all at the same time. The scene is filmed with frankness and little modesty, but it is also a scene lacking in any kind of passion. It's as if Franny and Malloy are almost performing an act of self masturbatory gratification, and in a way perhaps they are. While watching scenes such as this one, I couldn't help but think of the film Looking For Mr. Goodbar with Diane Keaton. In that film, Keaton hopped from bed to bed of just about any who could please her on any particular night. It worked well in that film because we understood Keaton's makeup and motivation, and the self-destructive tendencies that came with it. Ryan's Franny lacks any kind of motivation about anything. Besides word collecting, we get pointless scenes of Ryan daydreaming about how her parents met. These daydreams pop up at the oddest moments, and are as useless to us as Ryan's word and phrase collecting habit.

After a while, more victims pop up. Franny begins to suspect Malloy might be the killer but sleeps with him anyway. Besides the student, Cornelius, Campion throws in a few more suspects such as Kevin Bacon playing Franny's obsessive ex, and even Malloy's partner. They don't add much to the story, except to keep you in some kind of pseudo suspense. They do have to have more than one murder suspect, don't they? The biggest problem with the murder story is Franny's own unexplained rashness and lack of intelligence. In other words, you'll earn your Nancy Drew merit badge long before Franny does.

If Campion was trying to create a suspenseful murder mystery, she didn't succeed. If she was trying to create a provocative film with sexual undertones she didn't succeed there either. If she was trying to create an artsy hodgepodge of meaningless and pointless images, well I guess she may have succeeded in that, and of course if that's the only thing you achieve than I have no choice but to give In The Cut my grade of D.

"In the Cut" features solid acting and a nice color scheme but is mostly unremarkable in terms of story, script and visuals. Savvy viewers will recognize most of the plot elements and characters from other recent thrillers. The film does, however, have two remarkable elements: an amazing 5.1-channel sound mix and a nude scene that is notable not for its pornographic or fantasy-fulfilling qualities but for its stark realism.

Anyone who appreciates film sound should watch (or rather, listen to) "In the Cut" because it's one of the few existing films that uses 5.1-channel sound for more than SFX gimmicks or making sure the Dolby Digital logo appears on its DVD case. The film creates real ambiance and mood with its sound mix, which helped suck me into the story world and get a sense of the characters' environment. I first noticed this when Frannie descends the stairs in the restaurant (just before she sees the mysterious villain). As she walks through the noisy crowd and down the stairwell, the conversations, bustling and other background fade from the front to rear channels and mix with her footsteps as she descends. This, to me, is much more elegant use of 5.1-channel surround than sticking a few whizzing noises in the rear channels when a spaceship flies off the top edge of the frame. "In the Cut" makes full use of its available channels, which is more than 99% of high-budget films can say.

The other piece of the film that stuck with me was the nude scene with Frannie and Malloy that follows their inevitable hook-up. It's so rare to see a Hollywood nude scene that features characters just lounging with nothing on and in such an unromantic setting. It's especially amazing with an established star like Meg Ryan. There are no mysterious L-shaped sheets to hide their bodies but there is also no sense that Campion left them nude to attract voyeurs to her film. The characters don't assume erotic poses; they simply act as if they've already seen what they have to show each other, as most people do after sex. I don't often praise realism in films, especially stupid thrillers, but this scene stood out as much as the excellent sound design. If only the rest of the film could live up to those standards.