The Heart of American Darkness

(3 of 3)

Between these poles, Jack Lemmon contributes a self-justifying monologue about a long-ago but devastating marital infidelity that is haunting in its self-delusions. Jennifer Jason Leigh as the mom with a sideline in dirty talk and Anne Archer as a woman whose part-time job is clowning for school kids superbly represent lower-middle-class economic desperation. And then there's Julianne Moore, whose doctor-husband (Modine) obsessively pesters her about a one-night stand she may or may not have had years ago. When she finally makes her long confession, she is half-naked -- a brave actor's choice, signaling not eroticism but vulnerability.

That quality is Short Cuts' great redeeming grace. But it is Altman's refusal to linger on it sentimentally, his joyous appreciation of his actors' wicked inventiveness, and everyone's passionate, quick-witted desire to expose the vagaries of human behavior under quotidian pressure that simply sweep you up and sweep away whatever doubts you may have about its grand design. It is, finally, as a richly pulsating, hugely entertaining human comedy -- antic, wayward, glancing -- that Short Cuts bemuses, amuses and finally entrances us.