Taglines: From two American masters comes a movie like no other.
Short Cuts movie storyline. A fleet of helicopters sprays for medflies, revealing all the characters along the path of their flight. Dr. Ralph Wyman and his wife, Marian, meet another couple, Stuart and Claire Kane, at Zoe Trainer’s cello concert and make a spontaneous Sunday dinner date. Marian’s sister Sherri is married to philandering cop Gene, who makes up unbelievable stories to hide his affair with Betty Weathers. Betty is in the process of divorcing one of the helicopter pilots, Stormy.
Waitress Doreen Piggot is married to an alcoholic limo driver named Earl. TV commentator Howard Finnigan lives with his wife Anne and their young son, next door to Zoe and her mother, cabaret singer Tess Trainer. Their pool cleaner is Jerry Kaiser, whose wife, Lois, works from home as a phone sex operator, tending to the children while she talks off strange men. Jerry and Lois are friends with Doreen’s daughter Honey and her husband Bill, who works as a makeup artist.
The day before Casey Finnigan’s 8th birthday, Doreen hits him with her car as he’s running to school. Casey appears fine, and refuses Doreen’s offer of a ride home, because she is a stranger. His mother comes home from ordering his birthday cake to find Casey slumped lethargically on the couch. Howard convinces her to take Casey to the hospital, where he remains unconscious.
The baker calls the next day to inform Ann that the cake is ready, but Howard, wanting to keep the line free, briskly ends the conversation. The baker immediately calls back, incensed at being hung up on. While the Finnigans maintain their vigil, the baker continues to call and harass the couple. Howard’s estranged father turns up at the hospital and recalls that Casey’s hospitalization is reminiscent of the day that Howard was in an auto accident as a boy. When Howard’s mother went to her sister’s house, she found her in bed with her husband, whom she had seduced. That led to the estrangement between father and son.
Stuart and his two friends, Gordon and Vern, harass Doreen at the diner before they head out on their three-day fishing trip. On the first day, they find a young woman’s body submerged near some rocks. After some debate, they decide to tie her to the rocks, continue fishing, and report the body when they are done. When he comes home, Stuart eventually admits to Claire what they had done, and she is disgusted that they could fish for days with the woman’s body nearby. The body is identified as a 23-year-old woman, and Claire visits the funeral home out of a sense of guilt.
Stormy visits Betty’s house, ostensibly to pick up his mother’s clock, but instead, he spends the day destroying her belongings. Bill and Honey entertain themselves in the apartment that they are watching while its owners are on vacation by taking some pictures of Honey where Bill has made her up to look like she has been brutally beaten.
Gene abandons the family dog on a strange street because he cannot endure its barking, but after several days of his distraught children’s inquiries, he returns to the neighborhood and retrieves the dog, who had been picked up by Vern’s family. The Wymans get into a massive argument just before their dinner party with the Kanes. Marian admits to sleeping with another man. Both couples alleviate their stress by drinking heavily, and the party lasts all night long.
One day, Casey’s eyes begin to flutter. Ann’s excitement grows, but just as he appears to be fully waking, he suddenly dies. Seeing this and being overwhelmed, Howard’s father, Paul Finnigan, leaves the hospital while the distraught couple returns home and informs Zoe of Casey’s death. The next day, they go to the bakery to shame the baker over his abuse of them.
When he learns why they never picked up the cake, he asks them to stay and gives them baked goods. Zoe, worn to the breaking point by her mother’s alcoholism and her isolation, commits suicide by starting a car engine inside her garage, playing the cello as she asphyxiates. Later that day, her mother discovers that Zoe is dead and is bewildered.
Short Cuts is a 1993 American comedy-drama film, directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver. Substituting a Los Angeles setting for the Pacific Northwest backdrop of Carver’s stories, the film traces the actions of 22 principal characters, both in parallel and at occasional loose points of connection. The role of chance and luck is central to the film, and many of the stories concern death and infidelity.
The film features an ensemble cast including Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Fred Ward, Anne Archer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn, Jack Lemmon, Frances McDormand, Lori Singer, Andie MacDowell, Buck Henry, Lily Tomlin, actress and singer Annie Ross, and musicians Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett and Tom Waits.
Short Cuts (1993)
Directed by: Robert Altman
Starring: Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand
Screenplay by: Robert Altman, Frank Barhydt
Production Design by: Stephen Altman
Cinematography by: Walt Lloyd
Film Editing by: Suzy Elmiger, Geraldine Peroni
Costume Design by: John Hay
Set Decoration by: Susan Emshwiller
Art Direction by: Jerry Fleming
Music by: Mark Isham
MPAA Rating: R for graphic sexual language, and for nudity.
Distributed by: Fine Line Features
Release Date: October 3, 1993
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