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Powerful

Best movie ever!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Frannie Avery (Meg Ryan) is a New York City high school English teacher. She is hounded by her ex John Graham. Her half-sister best friend Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) pursues a married man. Frannie meets her student Cornelius Webb at a bar where she becomes entranced by a woman giving oral sex in the back room. Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) interviews her about a body part left outside her window. She fantasizes about Malloy who asks about the incident at the bar. Richard Rodriguez is Malloy's foul-mouthed police partner.Meg Ryan was trying to play against her romantic type casting. She is at least able to achieve that. Filmmaker Jane Campion delivers a indie-verier erotic thriller although the thrills don't get there. Frannie is a disconnected and fractured character. The movie is able accentuate that concept but it does need more paranoia in order for the thrills to land. The murky weird stuff in her character is great but the movie falls flat overall. The plot simply does not move enough.

I was very surprised by how much I liked this film. Reviews were mixed. But the film is beautifully paced, and directed by a master of the medium. This is a worthy addition to Campion's oeuvre. The night- time scenes outdoors in NYC are visually striking, especially when it is raining. Meg Ryan's insecure, withdrawn, armored character was the perfect foil for her "charming" sex-kitten roles. In this film she is a mature woman coming to grips with issues of repression and sexuality. Jennifer Jason Leigh's role as the wild sister is masterfully done as well. And Mark Rufallo's hard-boiled detective is played to perfection. The script is great as well. Nothing gratuitous occurs. The nudity and sex scenes are believable and are erotic without being needlessly prurient or overtly violent. They are believable and lovely. Perhaps this is because it is a woman who is directing the action in bed. Mark's character learned about sex as a teen, from an older woman who he regards kindly. He is respectful and caring despite being 100% macho cop. Kevin Bacon is wonderful as a scorned - and neurotic - lover. Sharrieff Pugh as a black student of Franny's is both sensitive, aggressive, and compelling to watch. The only flaw that I have with the film is that Franny (Meg) doesn't ask certain questions that to the viewer seem obvious. But if she did ask them early on the film would have been much shorter, and that would have been a shame. While the plot has some obvious turns, there is enough tension to keep the viewer involved. I won't answer the critics who didn't like the movie. If you are a fan of film noir and don't mind nudity you will love this film. I certainly did. I have no qualms about recommending this to aficionados of the genre.

I would like to start by saying that I found Mark Ruffalo's blatant sexual language and personality oddly sexy in this movie. Something about his quick banter accented by that New York voice really resonated with me. The facial hair and trim body definitely worked in his favor. Meg Ryan? Great body... but from a woman's perspective, I thought her hair did nothing for her face, her character, or for the audience. I just wish she could have been a little more vixen to go along with her sexual advances. But that's enough about the physical aspects of the lead roles! I liked this movie. I finished it about thirty minutes ago and have been thinking of it ever since. Sadly, I saw Ruffalo in "Now You See Me" prior to watching "In the Cut", so the little plot twists and turns didn't surprise me. I knew who the criminal was going to be within the first few scenes, but it seems a lot of other reviewers did as well. Even if the standard (sad that it has to be) thriller has a worn plot like this one, I was captivated. One reviewer said Frannie was paranoid the entire time, but I didn't feel that. She started off being quirky and book-smart, cracking sly jokes with Ruffalo and his partner. She was saying some things about the crime that I thought were bold and disengaging (as in, she seemed unaffected by the crimes). Halfway through the movie, when she began to suspect a certain someone of murder, she didn't react in a hugely paranoid manner. I actually wanted her to. For a girl thinking someone was a killer, she sure didn't stay away for long. The couple things that I did not care for were her relationship with her student and how little was known about Malloy's partner. Half the time I didn't understand if her student was writing a book, helping her with her case, infatuated with her, or some artsy weird kid rebelling against school. It read weird to me. The scene where he is in Frannie's room with her when they are about to get a little heavy... I didn't feel their attraction or understand his reactions. After reading a forum response, someone put him in a group with the violent men of this movie and said he was trying to figure out what Frannie wanted from him. That made more sense to me. As for the charm bracelet: a lot of people seem confused as to why Frannie freaked out the way she did. I think, because she knew that Malloy took her sister's key, she obviously would assume that he took her charm. What are the chances of him finding it in a dirty alleyway? There is one quick scene, which I have not gone back to find the timing for, where she is again looking at that photo of her sister and something is hanging down off of it. A chain of some sort. I thought in hindsight that it was her charm. This was not long before she found it in Malloy's pocket.. so my take on it was that he had placed it there after acquiring it, gone back in the room before or after the last female murder (trying real hard to avoid obvious spoilers), and re-pocketed it to later be found by Frannie. The only other qualm I had was that no back story or character development was given for Malloy's partner. He was a scumbag who goofed off a lot. Maybe this was intentional- to hide possible suspicion- but I felt it worked against the film. I wanted to know his early and family life. Other than that, the only characters I really liked were Malloy and the black guy who sat outside Pauline's place. Malloy was just brutally himself and I believed he could be a cop walking down my street. I appreciated the rawness, no apologies. Frannie's ex creeped me out and I want him to go get help. Or sleep. The stripper girls were no big deal. Frannie was great sometimes but I didn't always believe her sexual prowess... maybe it was just the hair. Though I DID love her fascination with words. I'm biased because I write down things that catch my attention as well. When Frannie reads that first train poem about the kiss, I thought, "Ooh, I like that, I should write it down." Safe to say... She beat me to it. Oh, did anyone else keep expecting her to have this psychic photographic memory that was going to help her solve crimes? It helped with the blow job princess and her little clues, but otherwise, it didn't play a huge role. I thought "Meow" and her other phrases were going to spell out some mysteries. I thought the running girls and her mysterious stare-offs at random objects would present themselves later. Guess not.

The acting is fine. So are the directing and cinematography. But who cares? The story is so full of holes that it's hard to believe Campion wasted her time on such junk. A creepy ex-boyfriend and a student who happens to be fixated on serial murders? Nah, they're just filler, a couple of obvious suspects, though Meg Ryan's character isn't even bright enough to suspect them as she sleepwalks through her life. No, the killer is there in the background, waiting for the big reveal in the last five minutes. The plot stinks to high heaven.Roger Ebert's review sums it up nicely: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/in-the-cut-2003