Short Cuts

Short Cuts (1993) is Robert Altman’s ensemble interpretation of Robert Carver’s short stories, all of which concern middle-class life, relationships, and arguments between the sexes. More concerned with the small moments of life than with any real grandiose realization, it’s a wonderfully intimate and studied film.

The title derives from the cuts between the seven or eight concurrent stories that arc through Altman’s film. Rather than trail one storyline through to its natural conclusion and then begin the next, Altman throws all the storylines together and leaves it to the viewer to decide which is most central to the film.

As a study of stress, in all of its human, marital, and familial facets, Short Cuts is a marvelous success. I’m thinking especially of the Marian (Julianne Moore) and Ralph Wyman (Matthew Modine) storyline, where the husband and wife continually spar with one another, and the nakedness with which they conduct their translucent anger is a thing to behold. These are people that do not feel any reason to suppress the natural antagonism that has become a part of their daily lives. Equally interesting is the Shepard family (Madeleine Stowe and Tim Robbins), as their storyline documents a discontented family, but one which stays together despite the animosity each spouse levels at the other.

For those familiar with P. T. Anderson’s Magnolia, it comes as no surprise that this study of L.A. suburban alienation and angst concludes with a natural disaster, an earthquake, which brings about the vicissitudes of life. This serendipitous force brings a calming influence to all those that the film has followed, though it leaves an ambivalence as to whether Chris Penn’s character fill face any retribution for his murderous act.

Despite the praise that has so far been offered, Altman’s Short Cuts does simplify a few storylines that Carver had expertly written. For example, the Finnigan family (Bruce Davison and Andie MacDowell) and their trauma aren’t handled with the same care and religious allegory that Carver so meticulously wove into their short story, “A Small Good Thing.” Yet the film handles so much humanity with such careful regard that it is impossible to seriously scold the film, since it possesses a rare and a diligent handling of such humane topics.

Short Cuts: 9/10