Rhonda Davidson

Has anyone considered that Frannie, s behaviour after finding her dead sister turns from someone almost catatonic to someone with a plan for revenge. Why does she take the gun and jacket? Why does she get into the car at the end. Is she really that stupid? This is a Jane Campion movie. The novel written by a woman the movie produced by women. I am a woman, and my take on this supposedly 'bad' thriller is that it is a type of parody on this typically male cop genre where women dying brutally is all part of the eroticism. Frannie has worked it out, she has the gun in the jacket pocket. This is no coincidence. Her boyfriend is chained and cannot interfere with her plan. It will be self defence. All through the movie we see Frannie is strong querky, she is not the dumb victim type we always see in the corny male version of this cop genre. This Campion version is subversive in full feminist style. But you probably need to be a feminist to pick up on the clues. In feminist analysis you look for what is called the silences. That is the things that are contradictory or illogical. That which should be stated but has been left out. In fact this movies real meaning is 'in the cut'. This title does not refer to slicing up women. It is the hint or key, for the viewer to look literally at the movies 'cut', i. e. It, s construction and apply a deconstructions analysis to see the real meaning. If this is too complex for you try watching this film with the assumption that Frannie has an intelligence much higher than the male characters and had a childhood with a philandering father figure.