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Short Cuts Movie Review

Short Cuts is a 1993 drama film directed by Robert Altman and starring Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore and numerous others. It’s a pretty good ensemble drama.

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“Silly daddy, sleeping on mommy“

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Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film. Waitress Doreen accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy’s grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. These are just some of the stories in this film that is three hours long and focusing on many different families. In that regard, it was similar to Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Magnolia’, but it was released before that movie, which gives it an extra point or two.

There is a sense of impending doom throughout the movie with all the characters awaiting some kind of terrible conflict or resolution. The extremely realistic, but also somewhat nihilist tone was interesting and its biggest power lies in the depiction of accidents and circumstances driving our lives to an unknown destination. It’s one of those films that are all about life’s unpredictability and how we as humans cannot control everything.

Every single actor delivered a strong performance in Short Cuts, which is basically a staggering ensemble drama that contains so many great actors. My issue is that because the movie is so overpopulated, even its longer runtime wasn’t enough to flesh out every single character. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Julianne Moore and Matthew Modine are some of the standouts here.

While the female nudity was excessive and unnecessary in this instance, the movie’s depiction of sex and how complicated it can be in relationships is one of its standout elements. There is this terrific, very memorable scene where Chris Penn’s character has a problem with his wife’s sex phone operator profession. The relationships between the characters are the highlights in the movie that otherwise failed to develop them more individually.

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Short Cuts has strong editing, excellent directing from Altman and the movie was also well shot and scored. For such a long movie, it is actually surprisingly engaging and it is perfect to watch in more than one sitting. I personally would have included more cinematic moments and more cross-cutting in this feature, but overall the movie undeniably worked in spite of its challenging structure.