This article was written exclusively for The Film Magazine by Margaret Roarty of the Just My Thoughts on It podcast.
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the rise of the erotic thriller, a genre that often reflected cultural anxieties about women’s sexuality. In those films, women were frequently portrayed as insatiable, dangerous temptresses whose sexual freedom led to disaster and who were ultimately punished. Jane Campion’s 2003 adaptation of Susanna Moore’s 1995 novel, In the Cut, challenges and subverts these conventions. Rather than blaming women or their sexual expression for chaos, the film locates the real threat in the structural violence and patriarchy of society itself.
In the Cut follows Frannie (Meg Ryan), a university English teacher who becomes entangled in a murder investigation after witnessing a troubling incident in a bar basement. As the body count rises and Frannie explores her sexual appetite, she grows convinced the killer could be someone in her circle. Frannie is successful and independent, but she is also conspicuously unfulfilled by the traditional milestones society expects women to want. Single and approaching forty, she has rejected marriage and motherhood not out of failure but by choice. What Frannie seeks is straightforward: sexual encounters without the promise of intimacy or domesticity. Campion normalizes this desire rather than stigmatizing it—Frannie’s needs are presented as human, not monstrous.
Campion casts men in a far more troubling light than traditional femme fatale narratives usually allow. Male characters are often entitled, menacing, and sometimes bordering on unhinged. Cornelius, one of Frannie’s students, repeatedly demands her attention while delivering a disturbing defense of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. He later nearly assaults a clearly impaired Frannie and gaslights her when she resists. John, the casually involved lover played by Kevin Bacon, stalks and harasses Frannie throughout the film, culminating in a violent public confrontation that reveals his volatility even as he pleads for her trust.
Frannie’s responses to these men are quiet and restrained—she does not meet aggression with aggression. Instead, she navigates their demands with caution, often assuming the roles they expect: confidante, caretaker, or emotional crutch. Campion renders male entitlement as unremarkable and depressingly normal, forcing the audience to see how everyday misogyny shapes women’s lives.
In contrast, Frannie’s half-sister Pauline embodies a different response to the same pressures. Paulie wants marriage, children, and the fairy-tale narrative many women are taught to pursue. She presents Frannie with a charm bracelet—each charm representing conventional milestones like marriage, a home, and motherhood—turning these life events into collectible trophies rather than meaningful choices. The film frames that ideal as a social expectation, not an individual imperative.
Campion punctures the fantasy of marriage across the film. Detective Giovanni Malloy (Mark Ruffalo), who becomes romantically interested in Frannie, is divorced and still estranged from his former domestic life. Detective Richard Rodriguez (Nick Damici), Malloy’s partner, nearly kills his wife during an argument, exposing the threat lurking beneath the veneer of married respectability. Frannie’s own family history offers another cautionary tale: in a black-and-white dream sequence she recounts her parents’ romantic courtship only to reveal that their marriage disintegrated quickly when her father abandoned her mother. Frannie’s gentle attempt to excuse his behavior by focusing on her mother’s pain demonstrates how internalized misogyny can lead women to shoulder blame for men’s betrayal.
Pauline’s longing for marriage repeatedly ends in heartbreak. She is not demonized for her desire for love; Campion treats her with empathy. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance captures a woman conditioned to define herself by her relationships with men—someone who is hurt and sometimes irrational, but not evil. Pauline’s story is an indictment of a culture that teaches women to see romantic attachment as their primary value, even when those attachments harm them.
The film’s serial killer who leaves wedding rings with his victims turns the symbol of commitment into an instrument of death. When Frannie discovers Pauline’s murdered body, her remaining illusions about love and marriage collapse. A nightmarish dream sequence replaces her earlier romantic fantasies with a bloody vision that forces Frannie to stop idealizing the past. Confronted with the choice between surrendering to the cultural promise of marriage or choosing her own life, she refuses the ring and kills the killer, reclaiming agency and survival.
That moment reframes Frannie’s arc: she is not a classical femme fatale punished for her sexuality, but a “final girl” who survives by rejecting the roles imposed on her. Rather than conforming to genre expectations or succumbing to patriarchal prescription, Frannie chooses autonomy. Her survival underscores a central message of the film: women are not inherently dangerous because of their sexuality—society’s structures and men’s violence are the real threats.
Nearly two decades after its release, In the Cut remains strikingly relevant. Jane Campion’s film challenges sexist tropes associated with erotic thrillers and asks viewers to reconsider the assumptions behind those narratives. Its most radical suggestion is simple: liberation comes not from being loved by another person but from self-possession. By centering a woman who claims sexual agency and refuses to be defined by marriage or motherhood, Campion crafted a thriller that is as much a critique of patriarchy as it is a suspenseful film.
Written by Margaret Roarty
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