Movie Recommendation- In The Cut
IN THE CUT (2003)
Generally, I use these occasional Movie Recommendation posts to highlight a film I think you may have missed because it’s obscure or it flew under the radar on its initial release. However with this one (as well as the next one I’ll do, whenever that may be), I’ll instead make the case for a movie you may have skipped because of negative reviews and bad word of mouth. From those things, one would get the impression that Jane Campion’s In the Cut is a film that is somehow both overheated and undercooked; its central mystery is all blood and no bite, never really grabbing hold of the viewer. Frankly, it’s hard to argue against that characterization. What that doesn’t get across, though, is how darkly beautiful a parade of gloomy symbolism the film is. Meg Ryan, whose outsize energy and charm has always obscured her meek frame, is here made small and vulnerable. Her male costars (with the exception of Kevin Bacon as a notably pathetic metrosexual ex-boyfriend) tower over her, making palpable the susceptibility of a woman on her own. Near the end, when Ryan dons a deep red dress with a high neckline that makes it appear as though her throat has been slit, it seems that Campion is saying that a female must first embrace her natural state of victimhood in order to come out the other side of it. It’s a potentially controversial point of view but it’s eloquently and gorgeously stated.
Worst movie ever made. You want to infer some message of art from this garbage? Please consider Kevin Bacon threatening to murder his dog? Infer anything from that? Trash on all levels of filmmaking.