Eshin Direct

I used to pride myself on never having walked out of a film. I even swallow all the crap HBO made-for-TV movies that have no real story line or plot to them. Well, tonight was the first film that I’ve ever had the pleasure of walking out on. Which film? In the Cut with Meg Ryan. Why?

Well, the film is unwatchable. The cinematography was appalling. It was like NYPD Blue on steriods. The whole film jumps around in that each scene was shown in a minimum of five different perspectives before moving painfully on to the next. The shaking camera is amusing for the first time and can add a dimension to the film if used sparingly but this film seemed to use every opportunity to use it. When the camera wasn’t amateurishly shaking, someone thought it would be “arty” to blur everything and focus in on completely different elements in the shot that in some cases weren’t focused on because they had a point but because it seemed like the someone was still trying to focus their camera.

The storyline wasn’t particularly inspiring. The characters, and I do feel that we jumped into their lives a little too quickly, were undeveloped to the extent that I really didn’t give a shit about who they were or what their problems or issues were. The dialogue at times was taxing simply because it was superficial which combined with the lack of empathy with the characters, made the film unbelievably pointless.

So, after half an hour, I decided to shut my eyes to avoid getting a migraine. After an hour, I was ready to leave. Thankfully most of the people I was with agreed with me and so we left after an hour and twenty minutes. The plot had gone nowhere and so I’m sure I didn’t miss much. Thankfully James had read the book and told us what happened. He didn’t have a great opinion of the book either…and the film just nailed the coffin in that one.

If you’re hot on Meg Ryan then maybe watch the film with the reward of seeing her topless, masturbate and have sex (yes, I didn’t think that would be a great seat-filling reason). But I really suggest you rent the VCD and just fast forward to those bits. But really, don’t waste your time.