Movie Review
'In the Cut' was 7 years in the making for Jane Campion

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	JAMES BRIDGES Mark Ruffalo and Meg Ryan are featured in Campion's psychological thriller "In the Cut," which opens Friday.
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Campion, interviewed in Toronto just before the film's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, read the book when it first came out, in the mid-'90s. "It was unbelievable, and pretty exciting," she said. "But I didn't think it could be a film."

Nonetheless, Campion's atmospheric film vision of "In the Cut" — her first film in four years — arrives in theaters Friday, starring Meg Ryan as Frannie, a lonely Manhattan teacher who becomes involved with a detective investigating a series of brutal murders. As Frannie's relationship with the enigmatic Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) deepens, she becomes increasingly exposed, both sexually and as a vulnerable pawn in someone's violent game.

Campion in Seattle Jane Campion will be in Seattle Wednesday to give the opening-night keynote address for "Felliniana," a Seattle celebration of the cultural legacy of director Federico Fellini, based at the University of Washington. Also featured will be director/screenwriter Gianfranco Angelucci, a close collaborator of Fellini, and musical tributes to the work of Italian composers Nino Rota and Nicola Piovani. Opening-night festivities begin at 7:30 at Meany Hall on the University of Washington campus. Tickets are $25 ($6 for students) and can be obtained at the UW Arts Ticket Office, 4001 University Way N.E., Seattle; 206-543-4880. For more information on "Felliniana," which includes events throughout the week, see www.felliniana.org.

A thoughtful and deliberate conversationalist, Campion remembered discussing the book with her woman friends — "that sort of scary excitement that the book evokes, even as a reader. Very erotic and sexy and terrifying and intelligent." Nicole Kidman, who starred in Campion's "The Portrait of a Lady," read the book on Campion's recommendation. "She said, 'I'll get the rights and we'll do it together.' "

Thus began a seven-year odyssey, which initially seemed to confirm Campion's initial fears. Funding proved extremely difficult. "A lot of people were frightened by this story," said Campion, because of its explicit violence and sexuality. But the more rejection she heard, the more interested Campion became. "I wondered, why are they frightened? What's going on? The more I went into the story, the more healing I found it, incredibly. I found that it is very healing to go into the darkness and find out what's scaring you. I was taking the journey, vicariously doing this, too."

When Kidman, shaken by her divorce from Tom Cruise, dropped out of the leading role (she remained with the film as a producer), Campion had to find another actress to take this difficult journey — and the result is one of the year's more offbeat casting choices. Meg Ryan, best known for her work in perky romantic comedies ("When Harry Met Sally ... " "You've Got Mail"), stepped up to the challenge.

TINA FINEBERG / AP Director Jane Campion was confronted by many challenges while making "In the Cut." "A lot of people were frightened by this story," said Campion, because of its explicit violence and sexuality.

"She was probably very sick of the one genre that she specializes in," speculated Campion. "She was likewise interested in the book and thought it would be a very interesting story to tell."

"In the Cut" comes from a very female point of view (rare in a thriller), as we see the East Village — and smooth-voiced Malloy — through Frannie's wary eyes. And Campion felt it was important to direct it herself, for that reason.

"There were men who wanted to make this movie, too, and I didn't want to let them," she said. "I felt like they might be salacious about the intimate scenes, and I don't think we really are."

The movie does contain the most explicit scenes of Ryan's career, and they drew plenty of chatter when the film screened at the Toronto film festival. But Campion says the chatterers are missing the point: "It's about the relationship, what's going on between the two of them and how it's transforming them and making them more and more entitled to go deeper and deeper. It just felt so female to me."

Likewise, the look of the film is distinctive — film noir rarely sparkles with the flinty colors that "In the Cut" displays. Campion and cinematographer Deon Beebe (recently Oscar-nominated for "Chicago") have created what the director calls a "summer noir" — it's steamy rather than icy; red and blue and yellow rather than gray. The content is dark but the film's look is light; the reds bloom like flowers.

Now that the long journey of "In the Cut" is finally over, Campion is looking forward to some time off — she says she's taking four years off from directing feature films. She looks forward to spending time with her 9-year-old daughter, to writing, to making a short film about the environment sponsored by the United Nations. With the bustle of movie production and publicity over, she's looking forward to a more serene existence. "I'm very keen," she said, "to participate in a caring world."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

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