Starring: Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Director: Jane Campion
Rated: R
I BELIEVE in giving points for effort. And In The Cut tries very hard.
An adaptation of Susanna Moore’s best-selling novel, the film is a dark and grimy love story (be prepared for highly graphic depictions of sexual intercourse) trapped within a beautifully rendered, if empty, police procedural.
Frannie Thorstin (Meg Ryan), a writing teacher in New York City, becomes involved with homicide detective James Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) who is investigating a series of murders in her neighbourhood.
Jane Campion is an accomplished and sometimes brilliant film-maker. In The Cut might be further evidence that a talented director gets away with much that would be gimmicky and tedious in less agile hands.
Campion’s depiction of New York’s Lower East Side bohemia is so spot on, I could almost smell the garbage. Campion laces the film with coded symbols and referential imagery.
The suspense evoked was real. Dion Beebe’s cinematography is beautiful. There is much to recommend in the film.
And then there is Meg Ryan. To be fair, her character’s failures are as much about bad writing as bad acting. But whoever is to blame, the role is incoherent. Frannie is lifeless, her behaviour incomprehensible, her decisions incoherent.
Opposite her drab dullness, Mark Ruffalo is quite good as the homicide detective. His character may be mere homage to the American cinema noir of the ’70s, but Ruffalo plays it well.
I will admit I haven’t read the book, but I bet it is a suspenseful, chilling thriller.
And I would parlay my winnings – if I’m right – on this bet: Campion should have let someone besides the novel’s author write the screenplay.
