In the Cut (film)

In the Cut
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Jane Campion
Screenplay by	Jane Campion Susanna Moore
Based on	In the Cut by Susanna Moore
Produced by	Nicole Kidman Laurie Parker
Starring	Meg Ryan Mark Ruffalo Jennifer Jason Leigh Nick Damici Sharrieff Pugh
Cinematography	Dion Beebe
Edited by	Alexandre de Franceschi
Music by	Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson
Production company	Pathé Productions Ltd
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Releasing;[1] United States) Pathé Distribution (United Kingdom)
Release dates	October 22, 2003 (2003-10-22) ( limited ) October 31, 2003 (2003-10-31) (wide)
Running time	119 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom[2]
Language	English
Budget	$12 million[3]
Box office	$23.7 million[4]

In the Cut is a 2003 American

In recent years, the film has undergone a reappraisal for its subversion of the male gaze and other common movie tropes.^[7][8][9]

Plot

Frannie Avery, an introverted writer and English teacher in New York City, meets one of her students, Cornelius, at a local pub to talk about coursework. Cornelius proposes a theory that John Wayne Gacy may not have been guilty of his crimes, later suggesting that 'desire' was responsible. On her way to the basement bathroom, she witnesses a woman performing oral sex on a man. Though it's dark, she can see a 3 of spades tattoo on the man's wrist and the woman's blue fingernails.

Periodically, Frannie reads poems on subway posters that seem to have bearing on her own life.

Several days later, Detective Giovanni Malloy questions Frannie as he investigates the gruesome murder of a young woman whose severed limb was found in Frannie's garden. Frannie is alternately thrilled and frightened by the detective's sexual aggressiveness, even as she grows disillusioned with the sexist attitudes and crude behavior of other men, including the detective's partner, Richard Rodriguez, who can no longer carry a gun because he tried to kill his wife. Frannie questions Malloy about his 3 of spades tattoo, which he says identifies him as a member of a secret club. While walking home from a bar, she is assaulted by a masked stranger. She phones Malloy, and the two have passionate sex. She realizes a charm is missing from her bracelet.

The next day, Frannie describes the sexual encounter to her free-spirited half-sister, Pauline, who lives above a strip club. After Malloy tells Frannie that she and the murder victim were in the same bar the night of the murder, she begins to suspect that Malloy may be the killer. A second victim is found dismembered in a washing machine at a school laundry. Frannie accompanies Malloy to a secluded spot along a river, where he teaches her to use a gun. Meanwhile, Cornelius has been taken in for police questioning on suspicion of the murders because his term paper on John Wayne Gacy is illustrated with blood.

Frannie is confronted by her former boyfriend, John Graham, who has been stalking her. He tells her he has been having panic attacks and that he wishes to ask Pauline out on a date. She goes to Pauline's apartment, which she finds unlocked and in disarray. In the bathroom, she finds Pauline's severed head in a plastic bag. After being questioned by Malloy, Frannie gets drunk in her apartment. Cornelius arrives and attempts to rape her, but is interrupted by Detective Rodriguez. Later, Malloy reveals that the killer's 'signature' is leaving a ring on the finger of his victims. Frannie handcuffs him to a pipe, and they have sex. After discovering that Malloy has her missing charm and a key to Pauline's apartment, she confronts him about his tattoo and suggests that he is the serial killer. She takes Malloy's jacket and gun, leaving him handcuffed, and is met by Rodriguez outside. He persuades her to get into his unmarked police car.

Rodriguez drives Frannie to the Little Red Lighthouse below the George Washington Bridge. She tells him that it reminds her of a book she teaches, To the Lighthouse. Frannie notices Rodriguez has the same tattoo as Malloy. Rodriguez presents a ring on the end of a knife and asks Frannie to marry him. Realizing that Rodriguez is the killer, Frannie shoots him with Malloy's gun. He attempts to strangle her, but she fires the gun again, killing him. Bloodied, she walks back to her apartment and lies down with Malloy, who is still cuffed to the pipe where she left him.

Cast

Production

Laurie Parker and Jane Campion spent five years developing the film.^[10] Nicole Kidman got a producer credit because she was originally cast as Frannie, but dropped out because she was getting a divorce and needed more time with her children.^[10] This film was executive produced by Effie T. Brown,^[11] in association with Sony Screen Gems and Pathé International.

Box office

In the Cut grossed $1,666,830 at the box office in Australia.^[12]

The total worldwide gross of In the Cut was $23,726,793.^[4]

Reception

Contemporary

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 33% based on reviews from 174 critics and an average rating of 4.86/10; the consensus reads: "Jane Campion takes a stab at subverting the psycho-sexual thriller genre with In the Cut, but gets tangled in her own abstraction."^[13] On Metacritic the film has a score of 46 out of 100 based on reviews from 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[14] CinemaScore gave it a rating of "F" based on surveys from general audiences.^[15]

Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote: "Beautifully crafted and highlighted by an arresting change-of-pace [performance] by Meg Ryan as an English teacher erotically awakened by a homicide detective. But the story's unpalatable narrative holes and dramatic missteps will hold sway over the pic's better qualities."^[16] Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote: "Though the oppressive artiness makes the early scenes fairly ridiculous, the director's odd methods add rare tension to the climax, as it becomes evident that the finale won't be so predictable in Campion's hands."^[17]

In a positive review for the Los Angeles Times, Manohla Dargis wrote “the film is filled with surreal, hothouse flourishes that tell the story as vividly and often more eloquently than either the plot mechanics or dialogue”, adding that it “may be the most maddening and imperfect great movie of the year”.^[6] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said although In the Cut “falls short of the masterpiece Campion intended, it's unquestionably the most ambitious and important film to come along in months”.^[18]

Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post wrote although the film was flawed as a thriller,

it's not such a write-off as a psychosexual portrait of a certain kind of single Manhattan woman at the turn of the new century. With its restless, jittery camera, the movie captures the jangly paranoia of a city that is often equally tantalizing and threatening; Frannie responds in kind, with her own contradictory sexual persona, which at certain times is defiantly autonomous and at others almost timidly girlish. A Looking for Mr. Goodbar for the post-9/11 age (the remnants of that tragedy form one of the movie's many visual leitmotifs), In the Cut focuses on the darker face of the classic New York romance. It's a face that's grimly credible, if seldom seen. Within an otherwise flawed, forgettable movie, Campion has managed to offer a vivid, if fleeting, glimpse of the wariness, self-deception and fear that shadow so many illicit thrills of sex in the city.^[5]

Hornaday also singled out Ruffalo's performance, writing the actor is “unsettlingly convincing as a man whose sexual magnetism lies not in leading-man good looks but in his ability to portray himself as both a protector and, if the situation warrants, a predator”.^[5]

In the Cut was among the films discussed favorably by Slavoj Žižek in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006).^[19]

Retrospective

In the years since In the Cut's original release, the film has been reexamined and praised as a