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In Reply to: In the Cut: Meg goes ALL the way! posted by albee33 on November 2, 2003 at 16:03:16:
Lady in the Dark--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The failure of either the heroine or the detective to follow up on the clue of the tattoo is unforgivable.Review by Duncan Shepherd
Published October 30, 2003In the Cut
Disappointing for a Jane Campion film, In the Cut is a cut above the general run, nonetheless. An erotic thriller by type, adapted from a best-seller by Susanna Moore, it leaves something to be desired in both potential areas of excitation.
Perhaps surprisingly (for Campion, again), the woman-in-peril plot looks about as lowbrow as a Lifetime Channel original, or, factoring in the eroticism, a straight-to-video Shannon Tweed vehicle available in versions both R-rated and Unrated. Somebody is hacking up women in the East Village neighborhood of the fortyish heroine, a live-alone writer and teacher surrounded by likely suspects. There's the "intense" former boyfriend and soap-opera actor who stalks her in the streets whenever he can steal time from his medical studies (no time to change out of his scrubs). Then there's the young black student, and John Wayne Gacy aficionado, who's helping her with her extracurricular studies of street slang: "Virginia" for vagina, for example, or the prepositional phrase of the title as a synonym for intercourse, setting up an explicit link here between sex and violence, one kind of gash and another kind of gash. Then there's the lead detective on the case, who not only has an after-hours interest in (euphemistically) dating the heroine, but also has a tattoo on his wrist identical to the one she had spied on a man in the cellar of the Red Turtle tavern, getting serviced by a blue-fingernailed prostitute who later turns up in pieces. (The heroine had not also seen the man's face: an improbability made possible only by the most artfully arranged light and the most perfect eyesight.) Then there's the cop's Puerto Rican ex-partner, now a deskbound "house mouse" for disciplinary reasons, who distinguishes himself by his macho misogynistic vulgarity. Finally there's the masked mugger who makes off with the heroine's purse and who may or may not be one of the aforementioned.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, the basic situation has been tarted-up with literary elements somewhat higher-toned than we could expect from Lifetime or straight-to-video. It isn't just that the heroine is a writer. ("Is it like a job," the cop wants to know, "or a hobby?" "A passion," she explains.) That's a common enough device, along with the vocations of painter and photographer, to "sensitize" the heroine in our eyes. It's more the way she goes at it -- full-time, like a real writer, obsessively collecting words in a notebook (the cop has a new one to teach her: "disarticulated" as a synonym for dismembered), or jotting down the poem du jour from the advertising space in subway cars (Lorca, Dante, etc.), and then posting them on her cluttered walls. And isn't it clever how the classroom discussion on To the Lighthouse foreshadows the action? "How many ladies have to die to make it good?" the teacher asks her groaning students. "At least three," comes the answer -- a number that would (just barely) qualify the current film as good by contemporary student standards. But maybe it's a little too clever how the climax takes our heroine literally to the lighthouse (a popular destination in thrillers), wringing a groan from friends of literature and enemies of literalness.
The thriller part of the film doubtless leaves more to be desired than the erotic part. The failure of either the heroine or the detective to follow up on the clue of the tattoo is unforgivable, giving mystery fans a better reason to scream than the severed head in the bathroom sink or the body parts in the clothes dryer. And it's hard to tell whether the strange, muzzy, muffled remoteness of Mark Ruffalo ought to be attributed to (a) the ineptitude of the detective, (b) the pragmatic obligation to keep himself in the running as a suspect, or (c) the insufferable self-consciousness of the actor. For certain, the actor's adoption of a Burt Reynolds mustache circa 1976 helps to establish his proper place in the pecking order of cut-rate Brandos. Such drawbacks would be less of a problem if the murder investigation were less front and center in the film, and more a distant backdrop to the heroine's journey into darkness, both within and without.
There is no mistaking the level of commitment, the ferocity of effort, that Campion brings to her work, even if one might have reservations about the artiness of some of the visuals: the blizzard of flower petals at the outset; the Taxi Driver-ish Expressionistic color, by turns fruity and succulent, electric and crackling; the antiquated black-and-white of the fantasy flashbacks; the selective focus that leaves large areas of the screen in a blur; the trendy tremulous camera movement; the engulfing shadows. The total effect -- the variety of tones, textures, tactilities -- is sensual to an extreme degree, but never to a gross one. And always impressive is the fearless independence of Campion's personal brand of feminism, unflattering, unempowering, unidealizing, although here again one might sigh a little at the de rigueur locale of a strip club (regardless how grittily depicted) or at the efficacy of a mugging as an aperitif to lovemaking. Meg Ryan gives herself up to the program -- herself, and all her little nose-scrunching, head-cocking endearments -- with an almost shocking abandon. The brunette Nicole Kidman wig (a reminder of who was originally cast in the role, and who still appears in the credits as a co-producer), coupled with the disfiguring Melanie Griffith lip job, might make it difficult, in the moments of carnality in particular, to feel that this is really and truly Meg Ryan. (She doesn't look like Ryan. She doesn't act like Ryan.) If the head is doubtful, however, the body is believably fortyish. She demonstrates herself better suited to the part than I could ever have guessed.
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Follow Ups
- The everlovin' Duncan Shepherd on In the Cut - clarkjohnsen 09:28:35 11/05/03 (1)
- Re: The everlovin' Duncan Shepherd on In the Cut - Ric 05:10:14 01/06/04 (0)
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