We're meant to be engulfed in suspense, but the characters are not very interesting and while oral sex performed on Ryan's character produces an orgasm, the film itself is merely ugly and boring without any "I'll have what she's having" levity. The press covering the Toronto Festival made much of the use of ever-explicit sex in films, and "In the Cut" was frequently cited, but despite Campion's skills, I found the film a time-waster.

Campion does have skills. She establishes the eerie mood that she is after, and she sets up an edgy rhythm that prods us into waiting for something bad to happen on top of the murder that has already been committed. Ruffalo gives another of his intrigung performances, this time as a detective investigating the killing, and he is odd enough to raise the question of whether he is the murderer. Ryan plays Frannie, a writing professor drawn into a seedy world normally distant from her, and although the two are attracted, we don't feel any real passion.