In the Cut (film)


In the Cut is a 2003 psychological thriller film written and directed by Jane Campion and starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Campion's screenplay is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Susanna Moore. The film focuses on an English teacher who becomes personally entangled with a detective investigating a series of gruesome murders in her Manhattan neighborhood.
The film received a limited release on October 22, 2003 in the United States, and was subsequently given a wide release on Halloween that year in the United States and United Kingdom. The film received mixed to negative reviews from most critics.

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 their coursework. Cornelius propounds a theory that John Wayne Gacy may not have been guilty of his murderous crimes, later suggesting that 'desire' was responsible. During the meeting, she heads to the bathroom in the basement. In the darkened basement hallway, she witnesses a woman performing oral sex on a man. Stunned, she momentarily observes the scene, but, due to the lack of light, is only able to discern a spade tattoo on the man's wrist. Periodically as she travels the subway, Frannie reads posters of poetic quotations in the carriages, which seem to have bearing on her own life story.
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. They flirt despite the grisly nature of their introduction, and meet at the same bar later. Frannie is alternately thrilled and frightened by the detective's sexual aggressiveness, even as she grows more disillusioned with the sexist attitudes and crude behavior of other men, including the detective's partner, Richard Rodriguez. Even as Malloy defends his partner, who can no longer carry a gun because he threatened his unfaithful wife, he promises he will do anything Frannie wants except hit her. She sheepishly leaves the bar abruptly and is assaulted by a masked stranger while walking home. The stranger takes her bag including her wallet. Upon arriving at her apartment, she phones Malloy, asking him to come over. The two have passionate sex, and she is taken aback by his sexual prowess. She tells him her mother's romanticised story of how she became engaged to her father after he proposed to her while ice-skating. She realises a charm is missing from her charm bracelet and Malloy suggests it probably went missing during the West Broadway attack. Frannie queries Malloy about his tattoo and he says that he is in 'a secret club.'
After their encounter, Frannie recognizes a spade tattoo on Malloy's wrist, the same one she had seen on the man in the basement of the bar. Frannie confides about the sexual encounter to her free-spirited sister, Pauline, who lives above a strip club. After Malloy tells Frannie that she and the first victim were in the same bar the night of the murder, and that she might have seen the murderer, she begins to suspect that Malloy may actually be the killer, especially after a second victim is found dismembered in a washing machine at a school laundry. Later, she accompanies Malloy to a woodsy spot along a river, where he scares her by shooting at garbage bags floating on the surface, then tells her she should learn how to shoot. She surprises herself by taking aim and shooting well. Meanwhile, Cornelius has been taken in by the police on suspicion of the murders, due to handing in his term paper on serial killers which was illustrated in blood.
Upon returning to her apartment, Frannie is confronted by her former boyfriend, John, with whom she has ended a relationship and who has told her he has been having panic attacks. and swiftly leaves. She goes to Pauline's apartment, which she finds unlocked and in disarray, covered in blood. In the bathroom sink, she finds Pauline's severed head in a plastic bag. Traumatized, Frannie is briefly questioned by Malloy at the police station. She returns home where she gets drunk. He has a bruised eye which he blames on Malloy, but tries to come on to Frannie. She almost stumbles into bed with Cornelius before throwing him out. Malloy's partner, Rodriguez, who is parked on the street, witnesses Cornelius fleeing the apartment, and sends Malloy to check on Frannie. Malloy reveals that the killer's 'signature' is leaving a ring on the finger of his victims.
Frannie lets Malloy into the apartment, and handcuffs him to a pipe before making love to him. After they are done having sex, Frannie discovers that he had a key to Pauline's apartment. She searches for the handcuff keys in his jacket, and finds a charm that had been missing from one of her bracelets. He claims he found it and planned to return it to her, but she is suspicious. She finally confronts Malloy about his tattoo, as well as her suspicion that he is a serial killer responsible for the string of murders. She flees the apartment, leaving Malloy handcuffed. She has Malloy's jacket in tow, and is met by Rodriguez outside, whom she leaves with.
As the two discuss what has transpired, Rodriguez drives Frannie to the Little Red Lighthouse below the George Washington Bridge, commenting that he likes to go fishing there. She tells him that the location reminds her of a book she teaches, To the Lighthouse. While the two talk, Frannie notices Rodriguez has the same spade tattoo on his wrist as Malloy. Rodriguez claims that he and Malloy got the idntical tattoo after their first big bust together. Realizing it is actually Rodriguez — not Malloy — who is the killer, Frannie fears she is to be his next victim. Rodriquez realises Frannie knows he is the killer, but holds out a ring on the end of his knife, saying 'Will you marry me?" Donning Malloy's jacket, which contains his gun, Frannie holds Rodriguez at gunpoint before shooting him once. He then attempts to strangle her, but she manages to fire the gun again, killing him. She walks, bloodied, back to her apartment and lies down in the arms of the exhausted Malloy, still cuffed to the pipe where she left him.

Cast

Production

and Jane Campion spent five years developing the film. This is Kidman's producing debut. Kidman was originally cast as Frannie, but dropped out because she was getting a divorce and needed more time with her children. This film was executive produced by Effie T. Brown, in association with Sony Screen Gems and Pathe International.

Box office

In the Cut grossed $1,666,830 at the box office in Australia.
The total worldwide gross of In the Cut was $23,726,793.

Reception

In the Cut received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 33% based on reviews from 172 critics and an average rating of 4.79/10; 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." The film maintains a score of 46 out of 100 from 38 critics on Metacritic. CinemaScore gave it a rating of "F" based on surveys from general audiences; as of 2020, it is one of only 19 films to receive such a rating.
Despite the largely unfavorable reception, however, In the Cut was among the films discussed by Slavoj Žižek in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. Film critic David Thomson has also called it a masterpiece, and, in his book Moments That Made the Movies, hails it as "one of the great films of the twenty-first century."