For two old dears sitting too noisily next to me the passion was evidently hardcore porn; I found Ruffalo and especially Ryan satisfactorily steamy, sometimes erotic, and about as well matched as the couple in 'Klute' when intensely emotional moments demanded some fine acting.

Equally good was Jennifer Jason Leigh playing Frannie's sex-starved half-sister Pauline. The two get some well-written scenes which are intimate and touchingly convincing.
However, as a whole the movie is too fearfully erratic to be moving or even very successful, despite some fine camerawork and editing, atmosphere laid on by the bucket-load, and valiant efforts by some of the secondary characters who never really get a chance.

As a slice of life, I suppose Campion's New York is as good as any I've imagined, but for a would-be detective and serial slasher thriller, she'd have done better to brush up her police homework and make it even halfway believable.

If it's profound things about women's sexuality or even the "struggle of the sexes" the New Zealander is trying to portray, this movie comes nowhere near the standard of 'The Piano' (1993; IMDb again). But then that was about repressed sexuality, not routine lust.

Non-linear", as 'kellang' put it, was a nice way of saying very uneven, while if 'In the Cut" is "artsy", then it's pretentiously so and symbolically studded for a popcorn Saturday night, where some might find some dodgy sepia ice-skating flashbacks and a nightmare moment artistic.

That ice was very thin. The storyline fell right through it. The music was fine, but nothing special and again of its time, but the film is never less than good to look at. Even the moments where you feel sorry for the cast. My vote: 4.5/10.