October 22, 2003

<NYT_KICKER>MOVIE REVIEW | 'IN THE CUT' </NYT_KICKER><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">

A Mystery of Language, a Mystery of Murder

</NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE type=" " version="1.0">By A. O. SCOTT
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rannie, the heroine of Jane Campion's "In the Cut," is a writer and teacher who collects curious scraps of language: pungent specimens of slang, wayward metaphors, provocative jargon. When a homicide detective on the trail of a serial killer describes the body of a murder victim as "disarticulated," Frannie's ears perk up. She jots the word down in a notebook and later on pesters him for a precise definition.

The word is a euphemism for something appropriately grisly, the results of which occasionally flash before Frannie's eyes, and ours, as this atmospheric exploration of sexual need and urban paranoia unfolds. But it might also describe the movie itself, which is a disjointed, sometimes fascinating mélange of moods, associations and effects. The story turns out to be fairly conventional, with an end that is a stale pretzel bowl of surprise twists, and the psychology of the characters can be frustratingly obscure, but there are nonetheless images and ideas that stick like splinters under your skin.

Ms. Campion ("The Piano," "The Portrait of a Lady") is an inveterate navigator of the murkier zones of female sexuality, and "In The Cut," adapted from Susanna Moore's novel, plots a hazardous nexus of dread, danger and desire. The camera, as it surveys the grimy streets and cramped apartments of Lower Manhattan, trembles as if it were running a fever, and the cinematography (by Dion Beebe) is jumpy and bleary-eyed. These effects seem intended to register Frannie's inner state, which is alternately morose and panicky. Meg Ryan, who plays Frannie, has darkened her hair and suppressed all of her characteristic perkiness for the role, which is both intriguing and maddeningly opaque.

Frannie, who lives alone, has only one friend, her half-sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who lives in shabby rooms above a strip club and exudes the kind of woozy vulnerability that is never a good idea when a serial killer is on the loose. The men with whom Frannie associates are without exception the kinds of guys who may actually turn out to be serial killers. Her former lover and current stalker, played by Kevin Bacon, is a walking non sequitur with a red baseball cap and a hairless dog. He shows up at unwelcome moments and interjects loud obscenities without much provocation.

Her prize student, meanwhile, is a young African-American named Cornelius (Sharrieff Pugh), who hands in a term paper decorated in blood that argues that John Wayne Gacy, the notorious murderer, was innocent, and who allows Ms. Campion to engage, as she did in "The Piano," in casual sexual stereotyping of nonwhite men.

The film's central (and most interesting) relationship is between Frannie and that disarticulating detective, whose name is Malloy and who is portrayed, with unnerving calm, by Mark Ruffalo. The source of Frannie's attraction to him is as vague as the rest of her personality, but their scenes together have a psychological undertow missing from the rest of the movie. Mr. Ruffalo's whispery intensity and the narcotizing, hesitant rhythms of his speech seem to draw Ms. Ryan out of her stupor even as they tilt our curiosity away from her and toward him.

The two of them go through the motions of a love affair that is at once raw and hesitant and that might have made for a bracing, erotic psychodrama. Instead "In the Cut," which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, is an ungainly hybrid.

"In the Cut" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has scenes of explicit sex and graphic violence.

IN THE CUT

Directed by Jane Campion; written by Ms. Campion and Susanna Moore, based on the novel by Ms. Moore; director of photography, Dion Beebe; edited by Alexandre de Franceschi; music by Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson; production designer, David Brisbin; produced by Laurie Parker and Nicole Kidman; released by Screen Gems and Pathé Productions. Running time: 118 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Meg Ryan (Frannie), Mark Ruffalo (Detective Malloy), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Pauline), Kevin Bacon (John Graham), Nick Damici (Detective Rodriguez) and Sharrieff Pugh (Cornelius Webb).

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