This 2003 film was really beaten up by critics and a box office failure. The hype was all about Meg Ryan playing against type, not at all the sweet pretty thing she’s done over and over again, and even (finally) some onscreen nudity. Tivo Suggests recorded it so I figured what the heck. I’m not sure I should have bothered, haven’t really decided whether it’s worth watching or not.
In the Cut stars Meg Ryan as an English teacher in Manhattan who wants to be (of course) a writer but all she does in that regard is collect words and scraps of poetry to pin on her wall. Plus she tutors a hardbodied young black student in bars and he has the hots for her. Jennifer Jason Leigh is her half-sister, same father, who lives above a go-go bar and makes appointments with doctors to fuck them in hopes of landing one as a husband.
A woman is brutally murdered in Ryan’s neighborhood and a detective, played by Mark Ruffalo, comes by to check if she saw anything related, but she says no; Ruffalo, without any reason beyond appearance, feels an instant sexual attraction to her. There’s another savage murder. Ryan and Ruffalo have sex after a nasty bar conversation. Still another murder, the victim someone close to our heroine. Ryan is confused and is trapped by the villain.
My first problem is Mark Ruffalo. He does well in the right roles but I’m still waiting to see him move at a speed greater than lethargic–which never happens. Urgency, excitement and the like, which would be appropriate in at least some of his scenes in Cut just aren’t able to emerge. Second is the absence of sufficient build up in the script, co-written by director Jane Campion and novelist Susannah Moore, of clues hinting at the villain’s identity so when we do learn who did it, the surprise carries no weight in its punch and I just didn’t care.
Positives are there too: this is a rough film, in many ways. The language, the imagery, the movement, the plot, the sex are all very angular and rubbed up on raw edges. Seeing Meg Ryan in a sex scene after all these years. Most of the ingredients are almost but not quite there. In the end I guess my final words are:
not recommended
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