Friday Night Special - Night Of a Thousand Cuts

In The Cut (2003)

Starring: Megan Ryan, Marco Ruffantaglio, Keith Bacon Directed by: LaCatherine Breilliant Rating: R Genre: Romance Other

Friday Night Special - Friday Night Special is a special feature of Oswald's Screen Scene. Here we present reviews of movies that we feel may be of particular interest to those special lovers looking for that magical mood-setter of a date flick that just might ignite the passions bubbling under the surface during the last work day of the week. Is this "The One"? Or just "One of Those Things?" Let us be your guide! Review The strange and sexy world of "cutters" (people who cut themselves in order to remind themselves that they have blood) is explored by French director LaCatherine Breilliant ("The Waterlogged Piano", "J'aime Les Murs Salles", "Mon Père a etais Le Dernier Salle Roi de Maroc", "Les Spankings") in this nod to the lush Technicolor "womens" films of Douglas Sirk and Aldo Rey. Megan Ryan plays a writer recovering from an attack of bees incurred after following a bear into the woods who meets enticing Marco Ruffantaglio after he tears his t-shirt while repairing her dumbwaiter. Initially wildly attracted ("your mustache is like the parted hair of a well-groomed yeti"), she begins to suspect that he may have been involved in the ritual killings of a group of itinerant milkmaids. The story, based on a play by German plagiarist Frank Wedekind, is mostly an excuse for Breilliant to crank up the heat between the two stars. And it's true that we haven't seen such varied canoodling since Marlon Brando made "Irish" love to himself in the Jodorowsky-like epic "Missouri Jacks". But Ryan and Ruffantaglio make it work, sweating and struggling like a pair of weasels trying to dig their way out of a bed full of party coats. At four hours an twenty-two minutes, it could well seem a bit self-indulgent, but don't let that scare you off. Breilliant may be a touch "L'amour tojours" but this is one duck whose seductive quack is no decoy.