“In the Cut ” (2003)
Film Review by Julia Dudnik-Stern

If you were to judge this film by its previews, you’d think it was a murder mystery. If you had read Susanna Moore’s bestselling noir novel by the same name and seen a couple of Campion’s previous films—“The Piano” (1993), “The Portrait of a Lady” (1996)—you’d be expecting a character piece with a strong female lead. It is regrettable that the film tried for both, and this is likely the reason that it didn’t quite succeed at either.

In the Cut is Moore’s most critically acclaimed work thus far, mainly because of a change of genre and tone as compared to the writer’s previous novels. Other books by Susanna Moore can be found through Random House.

There are many excellent things about “In the Cut.” Although drastically different in look and feel from the director’s earlier work, the film is beautiful in a non-traditional way. The usually glossy, glamorous New York is portrayed as sleepy, creepy, and saturated by a darkly red sexuality that walks the line between erotica and pornography. The film has a consistently dreary, smudged quality and moves at a pace slower than what you’d expect from a crime thriller, adding to the overall suspense.

Although the jury is still out on the “book vs. movie” debate, it is indisputable that many on-screen adaptations of literature have become works of art in their own right. From mega-productions like “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy to more contemporary fiction adaptations such is “Blood Work” (2002), films based on books can work well enough to avoid comparisons to their literary origins. Unfortunately, this is not the case with “In the Cut.” Having read and loved the novel, I can’t escape comparing its impact with that of the film and finding the latter lacking. The murder plot becomes predictable when condensed to play out in a limited amount of time. The highly stylized presentation and slow speed of plot development make the viewer focus on the characters, and this is where the film fails again: While it is very interesting to see Meg Ryan work this well outside of her typical America’s sweetheart fare, the book-to-screen rewrite causes Frannie’s character to come across as unsure, unstable and confused about her own fears and desires, making it hard to relate to her or care about her ultimate fate. The rest of the characters lack depth, coming across as stereotypical—the stripper sister (Leigh) who doesn’t get enough sex, the whacky ex, the foul-mouthed cop…

1. Meg Ryan and Jennifer Jason Leigh. 2. Mark Ruffalo. Images courtesy of and copyright Screen Gems Inc.

One last point of comparison between the novel and the film is the ending, which is likely to piss off those who liked the book. While stylistically the film does an excellent job of maintaining the general tone of the original, the end is a rewrite. Although it is still not the typical Hollywood happy ending, the influence of American audiences wanting closure is evident, and it is disappointing. It is more forgivable here than, for example, in the case of the recent on-screen adaptation (or bastardization, as some would call it) of a Dumas’s classic, “The Count of Monte Cristo” (2002), but it is still a shame that a film that refused to compromise in tone did compromise in plot.