Subsequent to The Piano, her 1993 art-house hit and critical triumph, Jane Campion has made only two films - The Portrait of a Lady in 1996 and Holy Smoke in 1999 - both of them failures, albeit audacious and interesting failures. With In the Cut, she makes a bid for mainstream success with a thriller that is as portentous and self-consciously arty as it is lumbering and obvious. It's a terrible film and the worst thing Campion has done by a long stretch.

Meg Ryan plays New York writer and writing teacher Frannie Avery, a frustrated woman doing a book on African-American slang who envies her sister's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) sexuality and is fond of writing down words she doesn't know. At one point early on she writes down 'disarticulated' and that should be a broad hint to audiences about what's to come because what follows is as 'disjointed' (the word's meaning) as a film gets. Even if it's a deliberate directorial tactic (which it is), it fails.

Avery meets James Malloy (a mustachioed and mucho macho Mark Ruffalo), a cop investigating the death of a young woman in the neighbourhood, and is visibly stirred by his offer to be 'anything she wants him to be.' She takes him up on his offer and soon they are hitting the sheets with regularity. As their relationship becomes increasingly carnal, Malloy's tough-guy approach begins to excite thoughts of a less carnal nature in Avery's mind - like, could Malloy himself be the killer?

Ryan plays Avery as if she's channelling Nicole Kidman - which isn't a surprise as Kidman was originally slated for the role and serves as one of the film's producers (Ryan even sports a Kidman hairstyle). Her performance isn't bad - it's occasionally even brave - but she's let down by Campion's overly self-conscious direction. Campion's vision of New York is very 1970s - it's a dirty, grimy place where even the nature shots look like shit and are geared toward producing anxiety, though annoyance is more the outcome. And it doesn't help that Ruffalo's moustache and hair are straight out of Summer of Sam.

This cliched, old-style view of the city extends to Campion's (along with co-writer Susanna Moore, author of the novel upon which the movie is based) conception of the Avery character. Would any modern, intelligent, beautiful woman really be so shaken as to nearly faint after viewing someone getting a blow-job in a bar's basement? Would she really be so taken by a sexist, homophobic, Neanderthal like Malloy? I'm generally not a stickler for realism, but there are limits.