Rough Cut

New York City during this summer's power failure didn't look as murky as it does in In the Cut . Jane Campion's new erotic thriller gives Lower Manhattan a sooty, abused tone that movies haven't often shown since the '70s. But it's appropriate for two characters inching their way toward moral blackout: Frannie (Meg Ryan), an English professor, and Molloy (Mark Ruffalo), a police detective on a serial-killer case. Both are drawn to dark spaces, where strange creatures crawl and sick excitement comes in all sorts of packages.

Frannie has tiptoed down into one of those spaces — the...