Women's Pictures - Jane Campion's In the Cut
Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 12:00PM Anne Marie's Women's Pictures continues with her month-long look at the films of Jane Campion.
Before you look at me askance for choosing the 2003 film In the Cut for this week’s Jane Campion movie, let me share a smattering of the comments people have made at TFE and on Facebook about it:
“if you're going to cover 5 of her 7 films anyway, why not tackle the absolute worst of the lot?”
“fyi don't listen to anyone who says IN THE CUT is a bad movie. it's fantastic & worth finding.”
“I don't like In the Cut but as far as failures go, it's definitely one of the more interesting/intriguing ones.”
“IN THE CUT is one of my very very very very favorites of ever in everdom.”
With such wildly varied responses, my interest was piqued. And now, having watched In the Cut twice, I must say: everyone is right. It’s a terrible thriller. It’s also a fascinating meditation on the complicated, kinky relationship between sex and violence, told from a woman’s perspective. It is the simultaneously the most and least Campion-like film we’ve watched this month. In The Cut is a messy, ugly, beautiful contradiction.
It also has naked Mark Ruffalo. You're welcome.
Lit Professor Frannie Avery (Meg Ryan in an un-Ryan role) is the typical Campion heroine we’ve grown to love: fiercely intelligent, observant, headstrong, and independent. After a woman is found dismembered under her window, Frannie falls into lust with a flirtatious detective (Mark Ruffalo) who she suspects is the murderer. The body count rises along with Frannie’s passion, and the increasingly-tangled story ensnares her sex-obsessed sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a serial-killer-obsessed student (Sharrieff Pugh), and Frannie’s obsessive, possessive ex-boyfriend (Kevin Bacon).
A thriller is not the kind of genre in which a reflective director like Jane Campion excels. In past films, Campion has focused on character studies and powerful images. Plot was secondary. Instead, Campion used plot as the skeleton on which to hang the meat of her movie: necessary for structure, but hidden behind tonal shifts, visual beats, and character moments. However, this meditative mood is ill-suited to a thriller, which requires that the audience be present, aware, and anticipating each twist. That’s what makes In the Cut a poor thriller: though dark in its visual style - I forgot how obsessed the early aughts were with amber filters and handheld cameras - In the Cut retains that un-thriller-like contemplative Campion mode. The camera stays close to Frannie’s point of view as she reads quotes on subway ads, studies shadowed faces and wrist tattoos, and falls into Detective Malloy’s seduction.
That seduction scene operates as a kind of thesis for the movie’s themes on passion and violence. After Frannie is mugged, she calls the detective to her home. He wraps his arm around her neck, and they both pause in the heat of the moment. They don’t pause for long. Their relationship is as violent as this playacted mugging - Frannie’s appetite for the detective is tied to her suspicion that he’s the killer. Detective Malloy whispers cruel things to Frannie - this is not the Rom Com Ruffalo - and it turns her on more. Campion doesn’t pass judgement on her characters for their kinks. But in her hunt for the killer, Frannie is surrounded by the bodies of women who took similar risks on an unknown man, and those women wound up sashimi. Unfortunately, in the third act, the plot comes rushing to the foreground in a confused tangle, and Campion’s point is buried under a pile of genre cliches.
I’ve now reached my word limit, with so much more to unravel about this film. Maybe that’s the greatest takeaway from In the Cut - to dismiss it as merely “bad” is to miss seeing a Jane Campion film with the stitches exposed. Even though Campion (and producer Nicole Kidman, who dropped out of the starring role) spent 5 years trying to make In the Cut, it feels unfinished. Themes drop in and out of importance, secondary characters read powerfully or flat, even the camera vacillates between Very Campion (as with the deep shadows) and Un-Campion (as with the shaky camera). Without the polish of The Piano or Bright Star, In the Cut is a raw, emotional, flawed film that says something strong about violence and women. I’m still not quite sure what it is.
Next week on Women's Pictures:
4/30 - Bright Star (2009) - Join us for the Hit Me With Your Best Shot crossover with Campion's latest feature about poet John Keats. This is going to be a tough one to choose just one shot for. (Amazon Instant Video)
Reader Comments (19)
More than anything, I miss Meg Ryan's voice. I remember when it was rumored she'd narrate the How I Met Your Mother spinoff and I thought that was so uncharacteristically inspired. She truly has one of my favorite speaking voices in movie history.
I think you just described the plots of Basic Instinct and Single White Female.
My memory of this film is dim -- a tense, shifting mood, a lighting palette, a sense of anticipation and confusion. It sounds like if I watched it again, I'd get the same thing out of it!
Santy C. - True! Which is why I said it's not a great thriller. However, In The Cut has something that Basic Instinct & SWF lack - the perspective of a woman (and potential victim) of the male-dominated violence perpetrated onscreen. Both Basic Instinct & SWF have the "crazy evil sex fiend" femme fatale. It's an easy enough trope. (See also: Fatal Attraction.) In the Cut is the opposite: a woman on whom violence is instigated - whether consensually (sex) or not (murder). The line between consent and non-consent is where Frannie gets her kicks, and where the movie becomes the most complex theme-wise and lost thriller-wise.
Santy - well it is a genre full of tropes.
san fran -- same!
anne marie -i'm glad you took this one. I also remembered it as so messy but her films always have such memorable imagery and I do remember a few shots from this vividly despite having no memory of basically anything else from it and only one of those shots is naked Mark Ruffalo so that's impressive.
It has been a while since I've seen this, but I recall at how horrified I was, not by the story, but by the awfulness of the film. Many of the supposedly terrifying scenes--including a decapitation!-- are unintentionally funny. The childhood flashbacks are amateurish, the symbolism leaden. Meg Ryan is totally out of her element in the lead role. The whole thing borders on parody. It was as if Robert Zemeckis remade Looking For Mr. Goodbar.
Thanks so much for covering this, Anne Marie - I always find it so hard to explain why I love In The Cut, though I will try -
1) It feels so sexy throughout - Campion doesn't simply tell you that Frannie is aroused by the dark and sleazy surroundings, she actively forces you to feel it too.
2) That it is so unlike other thrillers (ie. not so thrilling in the traditional sense!) simply adds to the 'otherness' of a very female perspective... Frannie is extremely complex and we cannot easily categorise or position her.
3) I cannot think of another male star turn so effortlessly erotic as the objectified Mark Ruffalo in this movie!
4) A plot so familiar becomes such a different movie to those we've seen before, largely due to the minority voice telling it - we get bored of 'thrillers' because they're so often imbued with the thoughts and opinions of straight, white males - just look what happens when someone outside that group gets the chance to tackle a mainstream genre!
Anyway, I'm rambling so I'll shut up now!
Anne Marie - On that point, maybe In the Cut is how a "crazy evil sex fiend femme fatale" is created? I'm looking forward to watching Single Basic White Female Instinct now. :)
Speaking of looking, I need to watch this movie and Looking For Mr. Goodbar. My copy has been staring at me for YEARS...
It was as if Robert Zemeckis remade Looking For Mr. Goodbar.
Exactly.
I remember being very sorry I paid money to see this. I was embarrassed for Meg Ryan. The nude scenes were terrible and very in-erotic.
I think it was this and Magnolia that soured me on trusting directors (actors, producers, etc.) of producing something worthwhile every time they stepped out. Course, my first clue that this was a turkey was that it was only playing in one theater on its' opening weekend (The Sunshine--Lower, Lower East Side) and I ignored that warning. I sat in a theater at prime time that was only 25% full wondering how I missed the message everyone else got and first thing I got home was to re-read the reviews looking for clues.
@Henry
You should re-watch Magnolia. Does not mean you'll think it's an uncompromising masterpiece but it has aged better than Boogie Nights.
Oh man, oh man, I love this series and I love your perspective and I feel like my brain grows a little when I read your writing.
And now, despite the vitriol in this thread, I feel like I have to watch In The Cut. I always feel drawn to polarizing movies, the kind my mom always described as not good but "Of Interest"
I only saw this once, when it first came out, and remember thinking it flawed but interesting and generally underrated. I also remember thinking that while both of the leads were cast against type, Mark Ruffalo was much more effective. Not that Meg Ryan was bad, just that Ruffalo was *really* good. And dirty sexy!
I also thought this movie was interesting but not particularily good. I think Mark Ruffalo is ever so dreamy so that didn' t hurt. I really hope you are going to do Holy Smoke as part of this series!
I dunno, I remember liking it!
I kinda had the same reaction - it's interesting but kinda bad but maybe also kinda good at some things it's trying to do? but also maybe not good at those things? And some time into the second half I started to almost completely lose interest and was almost laughing at some of the direction (sure, women pass out on the floor with their heads resting in their open refrigerators all the time) and the never-ending darkness (jesus, can't someone turn on a light?).
But then I read Nick Davis' review which introduced a really interesting perspective on the movie that I hadn't considered. It doesn't totally redeem the movie but at least maybe explains it better:
http://www.nicksflickpicks.com/inthecut.html
Sorry Anne-Marie not even you can make me want to see this. But you gave it a damn good try!
I actually really, really like this movie. I get that it doesn't function too effectively as a thriller, but as a mood piece I think it's fantastic. It's flawed, but it's unique. I can't think of many films that conjure up a sense of dread and danger as palpably as this one.
And I actually thought Meg Ryan was terrific in this, to the extent that I thought she should have been considered for an Oscar nod that year (it wasn't the strongest year, granted, and I'd have placed her above some of the actual nominees). It saddens me that her career basically stopped completely after this film. She had/has untapped talent.
Has anyone read the book? The ending is haunting, VERY different, and … grim.
Finally finished this chore of a movie after several attempts to complete it. Meg Ryan's fate in Hollywood is punishment enough for her involvement in this mess. Kevin Beacon huge mistake participating in this mess as the character you played. At least your wife is someone I can root for despite being married to you and those nostrils. Mark Ruffalo went through a period of hot guy jerk roles. Glad it's over and he can be whiny hot guy in the movies.