Fairy Tale and Film

parts found in Frannie’s garden later that night), and his signature – an 
engagement ring left on the deceased’s finger – adds to the Bluebeard 
motif of a man with intimacy issues. A number of likely suspects emerge 
in terms of Frannie’s unstable ex and a student obsessed with a serial 
killer, and her ensuing relationship with the man assigned to investigate 
the murders, Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo), confirms a masochistic 
impulse as she compliantly places herself in his hands, seeming to lose 
narrative agency as the film (and their affair) progresses. Poems on 
the underground signal her plight in fairy tale references to leaving 
‘the path’ and entering a ‘dark place’, yet she ignores these warnings, 
evidently entranced by an element of danger with her new man.
 In the 
Cut 
attracted notable criticism because it provides an educated woman 
succumbing to an erotic fantasy world with a questionable man, 
negating her safety in a number of ways throughout the film, and sug-
gesting herself to be a likely victim of violence.
9
The film punishes its 
free- spirited female through the death of her half-sister (who becomes 
victim no. 3) and she becomes convinced that she has allowed a killer 
into her bed, yet even as she appears to gain the upper hand, handcuff-
ing the detective to a radiator pipe and making her escape, the final 
twist comes in being captured by his partner, Rodriguez (Nick Damici), 
and realising that he is the real killer. Frannie misjudges her lover 
because a number of ‘clues’ are misinterpreted, such as thinking the 

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102 
Fairy Tale and Film
spade tattoo on Malloy’s wrist identifies him as the killer, that a charm 
was taken from her bracelet as a trophy of some kind and that his pos-
session of her sister’s apartment key further signals his guilt, all of which 
prove to be false clues. Yet Frannie ultimately survives because she takes 
a trophy of her own. Having retained Malloy’s jacket, she uses his gun 
to defend herself (a weapon he taught her how to handle), and the final 
scene at daybreak shows her emerging triumphant from what looks like 
a fatal encounter with the killer. After walking home in a blood-soaked 
dress (looking, for all the world, like a slasher victim), she curls up on 
the floor next to her still cuffed lover. 
The fact that a policeman is shown to be the murderer is hardly new, 
with thrillers often depicting lawmen who are prone to corruption and 
murder. What makes 
In the Cut
such an interesting departure is that it 
enables an ostensible victim to defend herself – despite detective skills 
that are as dubious as her taste in men. Malloy’s friendship with a 
murderer, and fondness for playing power games with Frannie, render 
him somewhat suspicious, even by the end of the film. Although caring 
in other respects, Campion situates him within a disturbing culture of 
male hostility against women in which this softer side is often obscured, 
and the fact that his partner manages to evade official detection makes 
the implication all the more sinister. As with all such narratives there 
is the unsettling feeling that those supposedly working to uphold the 
law are also best equipped to commit heinous crimes and evade cap-
ture. We might recall that ‘Bluebeard’ is often aligned with a decadent 
aristocracy, the abnormal hue of his beard symbolically suggesting 
‘blue blood’, and was said to have been inspired by real figures from 
the upper class who considered themselves beyond the reach of justice 
or conventional morality.
10
Whether it is ignoble noblemen of centu-
ries past or modern-day policeman who think they are above the law, 
domestic violence and female murder extend to a host of examples (in 
both fact and fiction) often with no deeper motivations for such crimes 
other than simple misogyny. The original fairy tale is a discomfiting 
narrative not only due to the gruesomeness of the crimes committed by 
its demonic husband, but because his rationale is left perplexingly open. 
Tatar has noted that the sexual jealousy motive suggested by some (an 
early variant on the ‘nag or shag’ defence for domestic homicide still 
cited in courts today) holds no water, failing to explain what wife no. 1 
saw in the forbidden room. Was she simply guilty of disobedience by 
opening the forbidden door, and thus likely to deceive her husband 
in other ways? Bluebeard is ultimately a monstrous male figure who 
abuses his privileged position by killing women he is unable to control. 

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