Say goodbye to cute and perky. Meg Ryan is back, and this time
her orgasms aren’t fake.
In the new film “In the Cut,” Ryan plays Frannie
Avery, a seemingly conservative teacher living in lower Manhattan,
who finds herself taking sexual risks she never imagined. Romanced
by a dim-witted detective who goes by the name Malloy, played by
Mark Ruffalo, Ryan is swept into a kinky love affair that almost
takes her life. But for a film that relies on its intense sexual
scenes, “In the Cut” never quite reaches its
climax.
“In the Cut” is what would have happened if Harry
had met Sally in a sleazy bar in downtown Manhattan, followed her
home and then had violent sex with her while handcuffed to a chair.
Only this time around you don’t want any of what she’s
having.
Still, Ryan is not entirely to blame for the shortcomings of
this movie. Ruffalo, resembling a poor man’s Burt Reynolds,
has as much sex appeal as Al Gore in a Speedo.
“In the Cut” seems to have left too much on the
cutting room floor. Instead of making the plot suspenseful, the
multiple side stories are more underdeveloped than sub-Saharan
Africa. The only noteworthy performances are given by Kevin Bacon,
who plays the neurotic ex-boyfriend, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the
uninhibited, sex-crazed half sister. But their roles were cut so
short that they become meaningless.
What director Jane Campion is good at is creating a mood, which
in this case is both forcefully seductive and dangerously graphic.
While not everyone finds re-enacting a robbery to be something
sexually stimulating, “In the Cut” hints at sexual
desires not frequently explored.
Unfortunately, it only hints. If Campion wanted to sacrifice
plot for eroticism, then she needed to do a little bit more than
tie Ryan to a chair and call it avant-garde.
A crucial aspect of any thriller is creating a bond between the
main character and the audience, but with “In the Cut,”
you don’t care if Ryan herself gets the fatal cut.
““ Justin Scott