Waste of time

A Disappointing Continuation

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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 Meg Ryan's insecure, withdrawn, armored character was the perfect foil for her "charming" sex-kitten roles.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.

Jane Campion clearly can't make it. The film doesn't work at all. At first, we have the framing, witch is very tiring, with the continuous close - ups and the hand held camera only makes things worse. Blurring things or dimming the lights does not, I repeat does not creates atmosphere, it only shows luck of creativeness together with a very old fashion approach in film making. Showing us again and again every detail of the faces of the actors does not engage us more, it only makes us want to zoom out ourselves to see wtf is going on. The music is so academic that it doesn't exist. Worst of all: The dialogs. The film crawls all the way from the beginning to the bitter end and the dialogs are drugging it the other way. What can I say? Together with Holy Smoke, a film that ruined the talented Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet, (a tragedy really), In The Cut is so pointless that makes you wonder, was she really thinking making them? I wouldn't consider watching anything else from her. I gave her a four, for it's obvious that she tried, but she clearly failed. She doesn't have it. Sorry Jane.

And there I was thinking In the Cut might have had something to do with the sport of Golf – how wrong I was. Accomplished film maker Jane Campion is in the chair for said film, an involving for-the-first-act thriller which mutates into something deeply problematic and then just mutates further still into something quite unpleasant. The piece aims for, and borrows from, both the heights as well as bits and pieces from all of Bad Lieutenant; Naked and Basic Instinct to varying extents – needless to say, falling rather short of each of those examples. The usual suspects, in the form of content and conventions, are all here; certain grizzly murders act as catalysts to propel people together, one of whom is an overconfident police detective assigned to the case, whose own moral codes constantly appear blurred, in-between coming into contact with a middle aged woman he cannot quite get a lock on and whose own plight is one of a flitting, scattered nature as she hurls herself through a series of dangerous, Hellish encounters.Meg Ryan, well away from what many might refer to as her more usual or more "frothier" roles, plays the lead character; a woman named Frannie who occupies a dingy New York City apartment in an area seemingly bathed in crime and graffiti. She lives with her sister, the younger and far less advanced Pauline (Jason-Leigh); the mornings starting in colour-starved, dimly lit cinematography for the women and seeing Pauline, in-between doing what she needs to do for breakfast, limply peering out at a neighbouring Chinese man across the street inhabiting his own place. Her gaze is captured - the insinuation of a lack of men, both living with them and then later revealed to generally exist in their lives, becoming apparent. There is a male presence in Frannie's life of sorts, but it is that of the unhinged John Graham, played with a delicious mix of farce and menace by Kevin Bacon, who's highly feminine in his appearance and a jumpy, jittery guy seemingly a step away from being a total loon. He is, quite remarkably, and aside from being the best thing about the film, responsible for the single best scene during which he attempts to sell Frannie his pet dog. Given the bulk of what happens in In the Cut, that is saying something.Frannie teaches for a living, an Erin Gruwell-type figure working with the underprivileged and potentially hostile in this locale of urbane decay. She teaches, she tutors and is able to drive these exchanges with these sorts of people; the woman additionally is frank and unafraid to speak on a variety of things, someone who's blunt in her definition, to her sister no less, on certain parts of the female's body. If all was not necessarily well both economically and sociologically with the part of town in which the sisters live, things get a mite worse when a murder happens in the area; this bringing Mark Ruffalo's police detective, Giovanni Malloy, into proceedings and closer to Frannie's life when he shows up on her doorstep wanting to ask some questions. When we first see him, Malloy smokes in that way which makes smoking look good; in that distinct way people, whom eventually take up the habit, most probably saw and fell in love at that early stage. He comes off as being fairly cool and is, amidst the filth and aesthetical degradation we've so far encountered, undeniably handsome in this regard.When they first meet, it is he whom waits on the apartment stairs and in a physical position of being above her, although it is Frannie keeping him out of her dwelling and under control as she checks up on his authenticity. Their ties come to drive the film; later, drinks at a local bar are peppered by an internal performer and her lyrics on how one ought to be wary of certain partners and that, more often than not, they're "no good" for you – alarm bells ought to be ringing but we're not into the film enough for them to resonate. The piece dissolves into something within which there is very little talk of anything at all; proceedings peppered with frank, sexual encounters rearing up on the odd occasion. Around this, a rather dire plot to do with whom the killer actually is, and whose life is actually in danger, makes itself more and more known. Despite being a teacher and a woman with words, the character of Frannie is largely fatuous and feels both undercut and underwritten; her life, and life situation, is clumsily summarised every so often by the advertisements on the roof of the subway alluding to disorientation and isolation.Where we sense we ought to be observing a powerful chapter in her life in which she seems to have found a man; is treading perilously close to the edge and is finally having the city catch up with her after having avoided such a thing for so many years, the whole thing just comes off as a bad slasher sequel. The narrative is equivalent to that of a motor engine running on fumes, the lead darting here and there as various crazies enter and then leave her life again tiring; story structure and audience envelopment in a plot largely vacant with, it feels, the racier scenes and the racier scenes alone sadly acting as the reason one ought to remain in one's seat with any degree of interest. The film is confrontational and unafraid of holding back on specific content; for that, we acknowledge more-so admire the bravery of the beast, whilst its carrying with it a bleached out atmosphere of little-to-no hope twinned with an overall look of a grubby, grimy nature is dutifully executed, but the congealed whole feels too distorted and scattered to actually get behind.

Ehrrr... It's like "Se7en" for the ladies, maybe? I had mixed feelings about this one, story-wise. I didn't really like the ending, but I did like the very last shot of the film. And besides, this movie's got other things going for it... The cinematography, for example (you guys were expecting me to say something about Meg Ryan going gratuitously nude in this one, right?). By the way, you American DVD-renters got dissed again: the fellatio-scene in the beginning of the movie is cut in the regular rentals. My European version wasn't (but I've heard you guys do have an "Uncut Director's Edition"). Oh, and what was up with the numerous random shots portraying an American flag throughout the whole movie? Anybody got an explanation? Anyway, "In The Cut" is worth a watch, if not alone for the buzz it caused upon its release.