Short Cuts

viewed January 12, 2000 on video

For full information about this film, click here

I used to think this was one of the best films of the 90s, but that may have just been my imagination crafting my memories of the film into something it wasn't.  Seeing Magnolia made me revisit this film to confirm whether or not my memories were true.  I had first seen this film back in 1993 and was both bewildered and engrossed by what I saw.  As time past I found myself remembering a film that was sympathetic to its unglamorous working class characters even as it exposed the frailties of their moral and emotional states.  My recent viewing presented me with a film that tries to be true to its subjects but can't help often laughing a little too wickedly at their foibles.  Although it is an ambitious work, the tone of the film for the most part is sedate -- attempting to be jazzy -- and not as engaging as it could be.  

The groups of related characters among an extended featured cast of 19 vary wildly in their dramatic effectiveness.  The weakest set is the one that is perhaps most central, the blues singer (Annie Ross) and her cellist daughter (Lori Singer).  Ross' dour songs set the tone of the film, but personally I found both her and her singing annoyingly self-pitying, and her daughter had virtually no presence at all.  Robert Downey Jr., Lili Taylor, Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore, surprisingly, make little impact with their roles.  The relationship between the pool cleaner (Chris Penn) who is screwed up over her housewife who does phone sex while breastfeeding (Jennifer Jason Leigh) isn't as interesting as the gimmick would suggest. On the other hand, the fishing story involving the Fred Ward character is very well done, although his obvious feelings of guilt at continuing his fishing trip despite discovering a dead body eventually dissipate for lack of a dramatic payoff.  Lily Tomlin and Tom Waits have a nice series of scenes together that don't really go anywhere but meander in a nice, whimsical way.  Andie MacDowell and Bruce Davison have a terrific story as parents distraught over their dying child while a baker (Lyle Lovett) gives them menacing phone calls.  (The final scene, however, is a travesty compared to the Carver's version.)  

It seems, then, that the best executed series of scenes is the story thread involving Tim Robbins as a not-so morally astute cop who ends up doing the right thing by his wife (Madeleine Stowe, who is quite good) and family.  Like John C. Reilly in Magnolia, the peace officer seems to be the real centerpiece of the film (the two characters would be interesting in a film together -- one so straight-arrowed, the other slimy).  In my final analysis, this movie would have been better with half the people involved and therefore half the length. Altman's aim was to have a huge, talented cast to give the production epic weight -- instead it weighed the movie down.  

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