Release Date: October 31, 2003

Rated R for strong sexuality including explicit dialogue, nudity, graphic crime scenes and language

Written and Directed by: Jane Campion

Starring: Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kevin Bacon, Nick Damici, Sharrieff Pugh

Plot:
Based on the best-selling novel by Susanna Moore, "In the Cut" is a psychological thriller starring Meg Ryan and directed by Jane Campion. Ryan plays a lonely New York woman who discovers the darker side of passion after becoming involved with a tough homicide detective, who is investigating a series of murders in her neighborhood

Review:
Started well setting itself up, but boy did it take a right turn and crash. In The Cut features Frannie played by Meg Ryan and Detective Malloy played by Mark Ruffalo. Frannie is a very lonely woman, doesn't have a boyfriend and loves sex very much. She lives in an area where bad is written all over it. It all begins once she goes into a bar with one of her students.

Odd isn't it, a teacher going into a bar with one of her own students. I think so. Well later she excused herself because she had to go to the restroom. Lost in her path trying to find the restroom, she witnesses a woman performing oral sex to a man in the corner. It was very dark, so the chances of seeing the identity of the person was slim. As Meg Ryan is watching this, she notices a tatoo in the arm of the man and then leaves, but not after watching for quite a few seconds.

The plot is then released as Detective Malloy shows up near by her house asking to speak with her. The murder of a woman occured during the bar Frannie was in and Malloy questions if she saw anything. The connection between the two then begin as Malloy and Frannie pursue a relationship, actually not a relationship at all a sexfest is more like it.

One of the many problems with this film is the sex nonetheless. There have been far more better erotic stories told on film, with the same amount of sex, but done correctly. The problem with In The Cut is that it spends long scenes with sexual intercourse and moaning.

While it was occuring I was wondering why Meg Ryan accepted to do this. She has been quite an appreciated actress. Why did she go to such low lengths to make this. I've never seen this side of her. Sure, she has done films with sexuality and sex scenes, but not to this level. And I'll tell you people this film pushes the uncomfortable meter if you are watching the film with people around you. Then again we all have sex, but some have obsessions as in this film and some can restrain and not need it as much.

It may seem that this film is all about the sex. Well the answer to that is yes and no. I'm not going to lie, there is a lot of sex and all there is really to follow is the mystery of the death of a woman we don't even see in the movie. Kind of lame because they are having sex to waste time in between the mystery that they are not even advancing. They are not going out there and checking for evidence. They are not doing anything at all to further find out who the hell killed this woman. That truly bothered me.

They basically said screw the mystery and lets have Malloy and Frannie meet up almost every day and have all different kinds of sexuality. Besides that, they focused mostly on Frannie's way of life and not Malloys. Yes, he is a detective, so lets see some of the stuff he does. You can't guess that hes a detective in this movie if he doesn't tell you straight out, Hi, I'm a detective. It is the truth, because we only see his office in the police station once or twice in the entire film.

I can't even watch my own film In The Cut, what a waste.

Plenty of female and male nudity in this movie. Meg Ryan goes all out revealing every aspect of the human body and for Mark Ruffalo it is the same. After sitting through In The Cut, it truly makes me think, did Meg and Mark think a script like this will further themselves to oscar worthy pictures in the near future or did they just do it for the sex. I do not know what to think here.

Cinematography has been strong this year, even for some of the bad films. But I have to say I didn't enjoy the way they worked the camera in this movie. I wouldn't consider it bad conematography, but I would definetely consider it boring and plain cinematography. For scenes in which Frannie was in trouble in the street. The camera is not quick enough, it doesn't look like it is going to shock us.

There is a scene in which Frannie gets hit by a taxi and you can see the car coming miles away. Well not miles away, but you knew it was going to occur once she ran in the street. Also for the cinematography the scenes would truly drag. Some scenes are even long and boring and empty with nothing to further the story.

As for the dialogue, it was very silly most of the time and again always sexual. The camera would sit with Frannie and her sister pauline played by Jennifer Jason Leigh for minutes at times capturing them talking about men and their penises and things that the audience would say, "We don't care".

I won't give away the finale, but it was a predictable ending and at the end of it, you don't really care for the ending. They had no story advancing in the middle of the movie, that by the end of it, you don't care about these characters and it is no surprise to anyone. What a tragedy, a disaster I told myself at the end of this movie. And it is a shame that at the end of it, all you can say is Are we human beings truly that desperate for sex, Are there a lot of women that are sexually frustrated such as Frannie and Pauline?

Performance wise, sure Meg Ryan delivers a good performance, but where are the rest of the elements to make a movie good. In the gutter is where everything else is. You know this movie is headed no where, when there is a scene in which Malloy takes Frannie out to these woods with a lake. He hands her a gun and tells her to shoot a bag of trash. She shoots the bag of trash repeatedly and is having fun. Malloy then gets back in his car and Frannie as well and they head back to their neighborhood. I think we can all use the word pointless for that, because that is entirely what it was. Pointless scenes, which could have been filled with great scenes involving this mystery we want to know about.

This film needed improvement in almost every aspect. You could tell it wanted to deliver a good mystery with a very erotic love between those two. At the end of it, In The Cut is very badly directed and very hard to sit through without crinching your teeth.

In The Cut

Rating: