'In the Cut' is packed with atmosphere

In the Cut

Director: Jane Campion

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Meg Ryan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kevin Bacon, Nick Daniel

Cert: 18.

Suddenly everybody's favourite bubbly blonde - she of Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail - shows she can act in a grown-up film. Welcome to the 'new' Ryan.

Here, in a strong adaptation of Susanna Moore's novel, Campion leads us into the world of sexual menace in New York's East Village, where the quiet and lonely Ryan character, a college lecturer, is researching a book on street jargon.

She comes across a detective - well played by Ruffalo - investigating a local serial killer ... it is a meeting which will change her life, dangerously.

This is, as might be expected from Campion, whose films have never been conventional, a film which is never quite what it seems, shot in a documentary style of hand-held cameras. Thus, it is packed with atmosphere. It is also extremely and sexually layered.

But the surprise is Ryan, whose performance as the troubled lecturer who finds real life on the mean streets is quite excellent. She finds a nervous tension with which to imbue her character and she and Ruffalo, certainly not quite what he seems, sparkle off one another.

Campion has altered the novel's ending - something which Moore didn't approve of - and there is something missing from the original. But we have here a strong and disturbing thriller to satisfy us.

Star Rating: 4/5