In the Cut

This movie was not the typical Meg Ryan film; however, I think she did a great job of portraying her character. The movie was very suspenseful, and had me guessing who the killer was until the very end. I could not help but notice that like The Piano, this movie also had a very unrealistic story of the mother and father. Child-like animation was used like the burning man in the piano, this time by playing the ice skating scene in fast motion and using exaggerated facial expressions. Campion used a lot of symbols and clues throughout the movie. Campion showed multiple American flags during the movie, and also uses the lighthouse as a clue to the ending. Frannie, played by Meg Ryan, is teaching the children about the book entitled “To the Lighthouse,” Detective Rodriguez has a lighthouse on his desk, and of course, that is where he takes Frannie to try to kill her. Campion also uses poetry to set the scene. Every time Frannie takes the subway, she reads the poetry in transit, and it relates to the storyline. I think that it shows that this movie was created by women since all the men in this movie are seen as the potential murderer. Frannie cannot trust any man she knows; her student is crazy, her ex is crazy also, she saw Detective Malloy with the first victim, and Detective Rodriguez was the actual killer. This is why the entire movie is so suspenseful; because essentially every man in the movie could be the killer. This movie was quite gruesome and vulgar, but I found that I didn’t leave it disturbed in any way (perhaps because I covered my eyes whenever it was going to be disgusting). This could also be because the movie is created by women; although it is quite vulgar and brutal, I think it was for a purpose, unlike other movies which tend to have blood and sex just to please a certain audience. I think that the story required the dead bodies and needed to show the specific way in which they were killed in order for us to figure out the ending better. The sex was quite vulgar at times, but I think if the sex between Malloy and Frannie was intimate and romantic, he would seem less like a suspect.