As the grand ringmaster, it's here that Altman passes the baton to his actors , whose behavioral insights are critical to the film's success.
Short Cuts
From two American masters comes a movie like no other
1993 · 3h 8m · R
Comedy, Drama
Directed by
Robert Altman
Overview
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
Director and cast
- Robert Altman Director
- Andie MacDowell as Ann Finnigan
- Bruce Davison as Howard Finnigan
- Jack Lemmon as Paul Finnigan
- Tim Robbins as Gene Shepard
- Julianne Moore as Marian Wyman
- Tom Waits as Earl Piggot
- Lily Tomlin as Doreen Piggot
- Fred Ward as Stuart Kane
- Chris Penn as Jerry Kaiser
- Frances McDormand as Betty Weathers
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Inevitably it's a mixed bag, though the film's assurance in keeping it all coherent is at times exhilarating.
From the exhilarating opening, you know Altman's epic 'adaptation' of eight stories and a poem by Raymond Carver is going to be special.
The lives are often desperate and the characters inarticulate, but the group portrait is as grandly, sometimes as hilariously, realized as anything the director has ever done.
Triumphantly fierce, funny, moving and innovative.
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