In the Cut

Plot synopsis:
High school teacher and writer Frannie Avery meets a student at a local bar, and when she heads to the bathroom sees a woman performing oral sex on a man. A few days later, Detective Giovanni Malloy questions her as he investigates the gruesome murder of a young woman, whose severed limb was found in her garden. They flirt despite the grisly nature of their introduction, and meet at the same bar later. Frannie is alternately thrilled and frightened by the detective's sexual aggressiveness, even as she grows more disillusioned with the attitudes and crude behavior of other men, including the detective's partner, Richard Rodriguez. Even as Malloy defends his partner, who can no longer carry a gun because he threatened his unfaithful wife, he promises he will do anything she wants except hit her. She leaves abruptly and is assaulted walking home, but calls Malloy and their affair begins that night.
Frannie recognizes the detective's tattoo, from the man in the basement of the bar, and asks her sister Pauline if she would trust a man who got a blow job in a bar. Pauline says yes, but Frannie is still suspicious. After Malloy tells her that she and the first victim were in the same bar the night of the murder, and she might have seen the murderer, she begins to suspect that Malloy may actually be the killer, especially after a second victim is found. But later she goes with him to a woodsy spot by the water, where he scares her by shooting at garbage bags floating on the surface, then tells her she should learn how to shoot. She surprises herself by taking aim and shooting well, before they head back to the city.
She finds her old boyfriend in her bed when she gets home, and goes back to her sister's apartment, where she finds the door open and Pauline's dismembered body. She is now more frightened of Malloy than ever, but goes home and gets drunk, and almost stumbles into bed with her student before throwing him out. Malloy's partner is outside watching as the young man runs out, and Frannie shouts out the window that Malloy should stay away from her. But he comes over and helps her clean herself up, and she can't decide if she should trust him. So she cuffs him to a pipe and makes love to him, and as soon as she is done he starts rattling the cuffs, demanding to be set free. She is fishing in his jacket for the keys when she finds the missing charms from her bracelet, which he claims he found and was planning to return to her. She suddenly becomes very suspicious of him, and he gets scared and yells at her. She finally tells Malloy she saw his tattoo in the basement of the bar when he was getting a blow job, and she runs out, stumbling right into his partner's arms. Frannie tells Rodriguez what she saw, and he says they need to sit down and talk, so she gets in his car. Malloy's screams from the window are ignored.
Rodriguez drives her out to the GW bridge, telling her this is the place he goes to fish, and she says, "I teach that book, To the Lighthouse." But as soon as he locks the gate behind them she knows she is in trouble, and he shows her the tattoo on his arm, the twin of Malloy's. She realizes Malloy is innocent, then she slips on his jacket before Rodriguez takes her in his arms. She shoots him once with Malloy's gun but he tries to strangle her before she can shoot him again; they fall, and he dies. She walks, bloodied, back to her apartment and lies down in the arms of the exhausted Malloy, still cuffed to the pipe where she left him.

Tags: violence, neo noir, murder

Review:
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.
Admittedly it's not the strongest point in the film, but it has all the required shocks and surprises (and, you'd think enough gore for the modern audience), and while the revelation of the murderer is not the biggest twist ending ever, the final shot takes your breath away.And anyway, Campion, while handling the thriller genre competently, is using it as a means to explore sexuality.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's only too bad that the ending had to become a cop-and-crime-thriller movie ending -- I am glad that the ending is as it turns out (rather than, I hear, how the book ends the story), but I have a feeling that Campion, if she'd had total control, would have ended this more ambiguously.
Meg Ryan wallows through the movie in a poetic trance, Ruffalo can't make up his mind if he's a tough or a sensitive cop, the killings are totally unexplained and unmotivated, the sex scene are limp and bland, with porno type dialogue, no chemistry whatsover between the actors, I could rant on forever and ever.
This was dreadful.I had high hopes for this film, because I'm a big fan of Meg Ryan's acting abilities - she's very good.
I spent the whole thing hoping it was going to improve and trying to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it started out pretty ordinary and continued to be that way for the whole picture.It was dark for the sake of being dark, Meg's character was really badly overwritten and by the end of the film I really couldn't give a crap if a nuclear weapon suddenly went off and killed everyone involved.
Bad cinematography, bad direction, bad acting, and bad sound didn't help this one either.We rented this one last night hoping to see a good thriller instead we wasted two hours of our lives (this movie is way too long).
As a big fan of Meg Ryan and having read some promising reviews, I was looking forward to watching 'In The Cut'.I really wish I hadn't bothered!!!The film had no storyline, disjointed filming, and sexual undertones throughout it which served no value to the (I use the word lightly) plot!Meg...
I could be wrong about the loose women though, with the quality of the camera work they very well could have been men.I am not too familiar with the directors previous work, and after sitting through this garbage I'm really not keen to look into it any further.The movie attempts to give us some insight into a group of terribly traumatised minds, all of them obviously quite desperate for some human contact, but falls over itself by giving very little in the way of background to support these characters.
The plot is so simple and silly that has to explore an explicit free oral sex scene in the beginning of the movie and lots of bad language, contrasting with the correct use of the English language by the character of Frannie, to make some sort of difference.
I could see where an enterprising Film Studies professor could spend an entire month studying and discussing some of these themes in contrast to Campion's earlier efforts.Other than as an examination of the director as auteur, In The Cut is one of the most relentlessly and irredeemably inept excuses for a movie that it has ever been my misfortune to watch from beginning to end.
At the beginning of the film you get the sense that something horrible is going to happen yet the film goes on and on and on with the unstable fling (Kevin Bacon) and a black student writing an essay in blood in between--not to mention the close-up full-on sex scene with Frannie and Malloy--the intensity kept you waiting but your expecting cinematic orgasm was let down.
Perhaps plots are not essential to the film author such as Campion, but I do like to know since I sat straight on the edge of my seat in the dark for almost two hours.)The ending was also quite disappointed, kind of your typical Hollywood thriller.(no spoiler here.)Maybe I should watch it again but the blood in the bathroom somewhat put me off.
Meg Ryan and Jennifer Jason Leigh look like real people in this movie.
Jennifer Jason Leigh's character goes just a mite too far to be believable in that "I know I'm a psycho stalker, but I can't help it" schtick, Meg Ryan makes several illogical moves that make the viewer think, "I know no one who would do that," and the Kevin Bacon thing just throws the whole movie for a loop for no apparent reason, as nothing seems to be resolved in that subplot.Meg Ryan paints a beautiful emotional landscape (which is often difficult for romantic comedy actresses to do) but sadly, the rest of the film and even her own character's actions fail to live up to this emotionally believable performance.3/10, partially for how many times we've seen this plot in movies before.
Well, while watching these film I had mixed feelings, I didn't know if I was watching a bizarre erotic movie, a very bad thriller or anything at all.
There's lots (lots!) of free hard sex scenes, the plot of the serial killer is just inexistent (and there's lots of killings anyway!) and I thing the only motto of the movie is showing Meg Ryan nude (which had never happen before).
Only if you're only interested in Meg Ryan nude will you like this a little, if not, the movie is just awful!.
This is a poor erotic-thriller, which fails to deliver anything new, except Meg Ryan's nudity (which would have been better placed in a film of quality) not in this rubbish.It's pretentious and trashy, when it should have been insightful and stylish, some people seem to think its artistic and even profound, but it simply doesn't have the depth or the quality to be anything more than dull, despite the gritty visuals and the brave performances from the cast.Overall this film left me feeling robbed of my cash.
Drab, dreary movie about Meg Ryan (who seems to be sleepwalking) having an affair with police officer Mark Ruffalo while someone is murdering young women...or something like that.
The film is tautly directed by period piece filmmaker Jane Campion of Piano fame and stars Meg Ryan in the most honest and effective performance of her career and the super sexy Mark Ruffalo maintaining a noteworthy prescence and the appearence of his full frontal manhood which is to say quite impressive.
Without sharing any plot element whatsoever, "In the Cut" is as feminist as the 1977 Italian film "Wifemistress." Meg Ryan's character is allowed to be smart and independent as well as pretty and sexual.
Jane Campion appears to borrow heavily from the work of fellow director Abel Ferrara in "In the Cut." While watching this film, I found myself continually making comparisons with Ferrara's earlier "Fear City" (1984).
The film is a dark, murky, and seedy exploration into the frustrated sexuality of the lead character, played by Meg Ryan who must think the world is ready to know that her perky personality comes fully accessorized with perky breasts and a perky butt.
in the start I really liked how the film was trying to mimic what takes our attention making it very subjective, if the character's attention would be taken by a shoe for a millisecond camera would focus on a shoe etc, I found this interesting and fun but after a while it did not happen anymore and movie started to become very flat only to end in the worse hollywood ending (not as the book, as I found out)watching the movie I felt I was in a nightmare life of a frustrated woman because all male characters were extreme flat stereotypes and all were very bad:the black student wanted to rape the main characterkevin bacon had no character, but tried to mimic a schizofrenic or something, which is a jokemalloy was a 10 year old psychopath loked in a body of a cophis partner was even worse just to end up as a most typical of all hollywood stereotypes: a serial killerfat black homosexual pimpalthough I can speculate that there was an idea behind using such blunt stereotypes in this movie I was eventually very bored with general lack of any real character in the film because also females have the same problemwhole film feels very flat, undetermined, as if it wants to be ten different films but actually leaves you bored and uninterested, and its ending could have only been topped in hollywood ending of the year if aliens or godzila showed uponly worse films that this that I saw recently are michael bay's armageddon and bad boys II but those at least are consistent.
See this movie if any of the following interests you -- (1) Against type performance by Meg Ryan -- she's not "cute" and it works; (2) interesting camera work; (3) you can't take your eyes off of Mark Ruffalo, as Detective Malloy (4) imagery and themes that don't hit you over the head but build gradually, and (5)its analysis of "trust" in the modern world and if it is possible between people.Meg Ryan gives her best performance to date, as Franny, an understated, English teacher doing research on slang, who ends up getting involved in the investigation of a murder of a woman in her neighborhood.
The question of whether or not Franny can or should trust Malloy and other men is a large part of the plot and subtext.The film keeps you guessing until the end about the motivation and trustworthiness of at least two of the characters, and that works well.
Two parts that pulled me out were the silly drawing on the blackboard and the walk home - both were unbelievable.The editing was understated and effective.The real reason for watching this film is Meg Ryan's performance.
The gritty cinematography and internalized character that Ryan plays make for a surreal trip.You never know at any time who the real killer might be; the true test of a great thriller.Jane Campion successfully pulls us into a world both charmed and frightening- the characters are simultaneously passionate, guarded, and potentially dangerous...
Jane Campion the director of this film seems to be telling this story from a woman's point of view.
It also brings a new dimension to films in which this aspect is only allowed to men to have erotic fantasies, but at no time can a woman be permitted the same.The crime that is being investigated at the beginning comes to haunt Frannie, played by Meg Ryan.
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.
watching frannie do so we do not know whether she has made a huge mistake or is finding her salvation.there much to say about this movie, to talk about the wonderful performances so perfectly nuanced from both meg ryan and mark raffaelo.
What follows is 90 minutes of watching these two characters (and others) having sex, talking about sex, fantasizing about having sex, and walking around in the nude most of the time.Let's face it - if it wasn't for the occasional graphic sex scene and Ryan getting her clothes off, nobody would have even known In the Cut existed.
It's not a good sign when the thing I'm most likely to remember of this film is just how awful Meg Ryan's inflated lips looked.
This is definitely one of the worst movies I had to see (I would not have, but this was in context of a sneak preview where you get to see a surprise film).It has absolutely no interesting plot, after 30 minutes you already are so indifferent to who the killer really is, you just dread for the end as soon as possible.The camera work is awful, shaky and out of focus - some may call it art if that is so, then please remove this film from cinemas and get it into museums, I don't go there often.The soundtrack was tedious, either dragging classical-like stuff, or old songs in radio quality, the best being an Eurythmics song.Worst of all were the ridiculous sex scenes, the exposed penis at the beginning or the nude scenes with Meg Ryan - all awful and I think this was only used to attempt saving the picture, by dragging certain people to the back rows of the cinemas.No good of any kind in this film - absolutely a must avoid!.
Ruffalo plays a detective so unbelievable and self absorbed that he makes Mark Ferman look like a saint.In The Cut has gotten much publicity as Meg Ryan's new image film.
But, it is way too weird – the unrated version is way out there for a mainstream film.Meg Ryan, trying to break out of her nice girl image, is Frannie who cries throughout half the movie.
She is a teacher who wants to sleep with a student, but does not seem to sleep with anyone until Ruffalo's Detective Malloy asks her questions about a gruesome murder.Frannie suspects Malloy, but Kevin Bacon's John Graham is a weird freak who she should also suspect.I am not sure what Jane Campion was trying to accomplish here, but it quite a tangled, sexual web that she weaves.
campion makes every female character into a victim in her movies and in the cut is no exception.
I watch films constantly and I can't remember a time where I hated the characters on screen as much as the ones played by Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo as well as the others.
The Franny character (Meg Ryan) was never developed.
It is far more effective to let the flow of natural human behavior take the viewer to a troubling place in the psyche than it is to try to do so by skipping story development and just having all the characters behave morose and bizarrely at all times and by using shadowy lighting.This movie made me feel very sad for Meg Ryan.
I was informed by a friend of mine that this was an excellent erotic thriller and one of Meg Ryan's best films.Well it just shows how one persons opinion can be far different to another.
I'm not sure if it's just Mark Ruffalo's usual coiled performance as Malloy that makes him more and more sympathetic to the audience, so puts the film out of balance compared to Meg Ryan's distancing passivity.
Jane Campion the director of "In The Cut" throws into the movie an obvious "Red Herring" by having Fannie's former boyfriend John, Kevin Bacon, stalking her throughout the entire film.