IN THE CUT

The critics back in 2003 really gave this erotic thriller from Jane Campion a thumbs down - a wretched 35% on Rotten Tomatoes tells its own story.

Whilst there was acknowledgement of the superb cinematography by Dion Beebe, the story came in for a lot of flak.  And there was widespread disapproval of ‘America’s Sweetheart’ Meg Ryan trying to move out of her romcom lane and indulging herself (so it was seen) in graphic sex scenes.  Plus it was too arty and pretentious, a criticism which I would go along with a bit (Ryan's character, Frannie reading out aloud bits of poetry off posters on the subway for example).

The film (for reasons not clear to me) is clearly intended to evoke the 1971 classic ‘Klute'.  Both are psychological thrillers set in New York about a woman at risk from a murderer who gets herself involved with a detective.

'Klute' was a commercial and critical success, and Jane Fonda picked up an Oscar, even though her playing a prostitute was potentially as big a risk as Meg Ryan's character having real orgasms as opposed to the fake one in 'When Harry Met Sally'.  I guess Fonda got away with it because her fine performance is embedded within a terrific picture, whereas Ryan's extremely good performance is in a film which is not great.

That being said I think it's far better than the critics of the day allowed.

But first, there's no getting away from the fact that the thriller element of the story is poor.  The main tension is supposed to derive from the fact that Meg Ryan's character Frannie suspects that the homicide detective she is attracted to (Mark Ruffalo) might actually be the guy who's killing women in the neighbourhood in a gruesome manner.  Given that this doesn't stop her having sex with him at every opportunity how seriously can we take we concern?  Not very in my case.  And I can't help thinking that Ruffalo is miscast in that he doesn't project any underlying cruelty that might make him plausible as the killer.

He seems to be a pretty hopeless detective given that (spoiler alert) the true killer turns out to be his partner.  Not that he seems to be taking the case that seriously; at one point he take Frannie off to some woods (in New York?) so that they can just while away some time together.

We also get a couple of characters who crop up from time to time without contributing much, at least not to the thriller plot.  One is a student of Frannie's (she's an English teacher) with whom she has an odd relationship.  At one point it seems like he might be a suspect but that goes nowhere.  The other is a guy who Frannie had sex with a couple of times and now won't leave her alone, played by Kevin Bacon, a waste of his talents.

The story finishes with a scene that ought to be very tense, when the real killer has Frannie at his mercy, but Campion is unable to get much juice out of it, but then again is she really trying to?

The main reason after all why this film bombed is that audiences and critics (as well as myself when I first saw it) were expecting a thriller with some sex thrown in, but Campion was delivering a character study of a woman who (shock horror) enjoys sex, with some thriller elements thrown in.  Admittedly though we don't need quite so many sex scenes to get the message.

That was too radical a concept for folks back then, but in years since its release this film's reputation has been on a recovery path.  

As noted already the cinematography is a marvel, setting some beautiful imagery against the grime of some of the seedier parts of New York.  But the main virtue of this film is that the story it tells is that of a female character trying to navigate a masculine world. That was rare in 2003.

Another unusual aspect is that a fair bit of running time is devoted to Frannie's relationship with her half-sister Pauline (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh).  Mind you I'm not sure that their conversations fully pass the Bechdel test since they revolve around men and sex.