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Short Cuts
Fine Line Features


7.0

based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
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FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Jack Lemmon, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Chris Penn

Using the short stories of Raymond Carver as inspiration, Robert Altman revisits the formula of his 1975 film "Nashville," portraying various interlocking stories set against the backdrop of contemporary middle-class Los Angeles.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Robert Altman Frank Barhydt Raymond Carver (writings)
DIRECTED BY:	Robert Altman
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 16, 2004 Video: September 2, 1997 Theatrical: October 3, 1993
RUNNING TIME:	187 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Time Richard Schickel

It is, finally, as a richly pulsating, hugely entertaining human comedy -- antic, wayward, glancing -- that Short Cuts bemuses, amuses and finally entrances us. [4 Oct 1993]

100

USA Today Mike Clark

This definitive "life goes on" movie does what Altman does best: juggle 22 characters, deftly switch moods, and offer a comlex warts-and-all characters whose lives seem to extend beyond the screen. Few movies attempt this; Fewer succeed. [1 Oct 1993]

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Los Angeles always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and people view the future tentatively. Robert Altman's Short Cuts captures that uneasiness perfectly.

100

The New York Times Vincent Canby

It raises the spirits not by phony sentimentality but by the amplitude of its art. From time to time, it is also roaringly funny... A terrific movie. [1 Oct 1993, p.C1]

100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Part of the miracle of Robert Altman's triumphantly fierce, funny, moving and innovative Short Cuts is that you can't get this movie out of your head. You keep playing it back to savor its formula-smashing audacity, its peerless performances and its cleareyed view of blasted lives.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Some movies can lay claim to being the best thing around in a week, a month, a year. Robert Altman's Short Cuts is closer to being one of the all-time bests, among the finest American films since the advent of sound. [22 Oct 1993]

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A rich, unnerving film, as comic as it is astringent, that in its own quiet way works up a considerable emotional charge. [8 Oct 1993]

100

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

Extraordinary...The movie has the intensity of an epic, only its subject matter is everyday life. [19 Oct 1993, p.A18(E)]

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie equivalent of a great read. It's a masterfully conducted concert of characters...already head and shoulders above most of the competition.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Exploding Raymond Carver's spare stories and minimally drawn characters onto the screen with startling imagination, Robert Altman has made his most complex and full-bodied human comedy since "Nashville."

Austin Chronicle Louis Black

Carver's stories are obviously inspiring for Altman, and that's the point, this movie is bursting at the seams with ideas and energy.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's a genuine pleasure to find a movie with such a deep and intelligent portrayal of simple human lives, with all their minor triumphs and tragedies.

Film.com John Hartl

Altman lucked out when he cast a singer, Ronee Blakley, in a major role in "Nashville," but he has not been as fortunate here with Annie Ross and Lyle Lovett, who lack Blakley's soulful dramatic presence.

Empire Staff (Not Credited)

At first, it's hard to sort out who knows who and where the stories connect, but it eventually comes together, combining the gripping power of a soap opera with the skewed, unusual perspectives of Carver and Altman.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

It's compelling, emotionally exhausting terrain, and Altman delivers it in cold, blunt strokes. [22 Oct 1993]

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Quirky, sometimes brilliant, and mostly ice-cold.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Inevitably it's a mixed bag, though the film's assurance in keeping it all coherent is at times exhilarating.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A daring but flawed achievement, diluting its emotional power and satirical bite with a self-consciously jagged structure, and a calculating, sometimes chilly untertone. [1 Oct 1993]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Altman shakes the camera like a two-bit horror director, and it seems a different sort of signature - less masterful than weary, less signed than resigned. Zero-sum, indeed.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

To read a Carver collection is to walk through a gallery of beautifully formed objects. To blend his stories into "soup," no matter how smartly, to see them "as just one story," is to vandalize good art, to rationalize filmic opportunism as aesthetic principle. [25 Oct 1993]

The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty

The correspondences he wants us to see from up there start to look contrived, illusory. [27 Sept 1993, p.98]

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A cynical, sexist and shallow work from cinema's premier misanthrope, Robert Altman, who here shows neither compassion for -- nor insight into -- the human condition.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kathleen H. gave it a3:
Sure, the intertwining of stories is masterful and the cast incredible. But the characters are such terrible people. And worse than that, from a movie point of view, they're boring people too. Why would I want to spend any time at all with any of them? They're shallow, pretentious, deceitful, manipulative, ridiculously unperceptive, and ... boring. Watching characters like that fumble through their empty lives and their pointless, nasty marriages isn't illuminating or interesting; it's just ... a boring waste of time.

Arhi gave it a10:
This is a European film in America. Strong and copied many times (Crash, Magnolia).

Manuel A. gave it a9:
Very and i mean Very layered movie. Although upon realizing this I still cannot bring myself to give it a 10. I just didn't like it the first viewing, and to me that is very important. It is a masterpiece nonetheless and I highly recommend the viewing of it. In response to Pat C "Magnolia" is not an Altman film. It was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, although upon viewing "Short Cuts" you will see that PTA is heavily influenced by Altman. Did you even watch "Magnolia"?

[Anonymous] gave it a1:
Horrible!!! Wasted 3 hours of my life :(((

Ryan M. gave it a 10:
One of my favorite movies ever. If you step back and look at "Short Cuts", it's hard not to realize this one bundles up all the great things about all the great films and puts them together. Not just one of the greatest films of all-time, but one of the greatest pieces of fiction ever, right up there with "War and Peace" and "Citizen Kane".

Pat C. gave it a 4:
Altman's later movies capture people doing real-life personal things - almost like we're eavesdropping on them. The Player, Magnolia, Gosford Park, the list goes on. He does this very well. But such scenes and his juggling of large temperamental casts does not in itself make a good show. I've got to think critic loyalty is present in the metascore of this 3-hour monstrosity more than quality. There's too much clashing. Why is there dialogue when it is drowned out by music or background noise? We try to hear. We assume a story is being told and try to follow. Altman challenges us to see how much we can stand before we are allowed to glean a nugget of pleasure or truth from a movie that, in the final analysis, substitutes intricacy for plot. Another splendid story gone awry under this director's clumsy pretentious handling. Once again we sense important worthy concepts, but ceaseless obstructive devices block comprehension, and the experience for most of us, who are not stupid by the way, will be exasperatingly tedious.

Yoon C. gave it a 7:
Ambitious and bighearted but also sprawling and diluted, it's a rather pale shadow of Altman's masterpiece Nashville. As a whole, lively and engaging but weighed on their own, the mini-stories don't hold much water, which can't be said for several powerful narratives in Nashville.

Short Cuts Fine Line Features

Short Cuts
Fine Line Features