SHORT CUTS (Directed by Robert Altman. Starring Andie McDowell, Bruce Davison, Julianne Moore, Mathew 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, Peter Gallagher, Annie Ross, Lori Singer, Jack Lemmon, Lyle Lovett, Buck Henry, Huey Lewis)

Phew. Just getting through the cast list takes an unusual amount of time. Getting to the end of the film takes 3 hours and 8 minutes, which is not so much a short cut as a diversion. Director Robert Altman is inclined to long takes too, letting his cameras rove through a scene, yet miraculously, this freewheeling adaptation of eight Raymond Carver short stories sinuously interweaved and intercut leaves the impression of economy rather than indulgence, and never overstays its welcome.

Altman favours a big canvas, and this is his biggest yet. In the beautiful opening credits, weird neon lit helicopters hover over an LA cityscape like malignant insects (when in fact they are dusting the city for some insidious invader called the Medfly) while on the ground we are introduced to nine couples, people whose connections are tenuous at best, other than that they worry about the same invisible insects and breathe in the same toxic spray. Nashville had a country music festival, and MASH an army hospital camp, but Short Cuts has a whole city neighbourhood, woven together into one big suburban tapestry.

There are two murders, a hit and run, a suicide, some infidelity and even a minor earthquake yet (apart from the slightly – if necessarily – contrived conclusion) Short Cuts never seems prone to the kind of exaggeration that would render it melodrama, or the plot fixation that would reduce it to soap opera. Rather, in the words of Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character trying to explain virtual reality to her friend, “it’s practically, totally real, but not.”

She is a housewife who operates a phone-sex line, taking dirty calls while tending her young children, muttering “You’re making my panties wet” as she changes her baby’s nappy. She may be unable to see the irony but Altman’s film revels in it. In a disconnected world, the omniscient director makes all the connections, layering up the ideas with imagery, dialogue, rhyming cuts and (pushing his message of alienation home) a bluesy music score.

Jennifer’s husband (Chris Penn) is disturbed by all the dirty talk at home, yet listens to his friend’s (Robert Downey Jr.) boastful sexual exploits on a mobile phone while sneakingly watching a naked woman (Lori Singer) pretend to drown. There is no sexual reality in his life, a point emphasised by cutting from the laddish talk of wet pussy to another couple, (Fred Ward and Anne Archer) making genuine love.

Ward and Archer’s union (in turn) is disturbed by Ward’s admission that, while on a fishing trip, he discovered the naked body of a young woman in a river but left her there until he and his buddies had finished fishing. Chris Penn’s attempt to get his wife to talk dirty to him ends up in baby talk. Although the revelation that the dead woman was a rape victim has no direct bearing on Penn’s life, in the scheme of Altman’s film it correlates with his growing sense of sexual alienation and indicates the potential for sexual violence.

Yet this is just a small piece of the big picture Altman has painted. There are a multitude of plot strands and an abundance of characters, with no storyline taking precedence over any other. Take your pick from the fascist cop (Tim Robbins) who deliberately loses his dog, Stormy Weathers (Peter Gallagher), the helicopter pilot who exacts bizarre revenge on his ex-wife; the on-again, off-again lifetime romance between a waitress (Lily Tomlin) and a drunk (Tom Waits); the belated attempt of an absent father (Jack Lemmon) to make a connection with his son (Bruce Davison) in danger of losing his own child . . .

Which is not to suggest all human life is here. This is specifically white and middle class, with only the occasional foray below that line. But as if LA hadn’t had enough bad press recently, Altman makes it appear a dangerous place to live without even taking account of the troubled boys from the hood.

Through stories of humour and despair, where the triumphs are as tiny as the tragedies, the real problem he identifies in the land of psychobabble is a failure to communicate. When a child is knocked down by waitress, he won’t accept her offer of help because his mother told him never to talk to strangers. None of the characters in Short Cuts is aware of the affect they are having on the others. The film-maker bridges the gaps, but this is a story of communal alienation. Even the most loving of the couples are not honest with each other.

In the only story strand added to Carver’s originals by Altman, jazz singer Annie Ross plays the blues in a smoky club while failing to pay attention at the storm cloud brewing in her own life. The introduction of her character allows Altman to draw the music from the story, rather than imposing it upon it. And a wonderful soundtrack it is too. There is a song from Bono and The Edge (‘Conversation On A Bar Stool’) and another from Elvis Costello (‘Punishing Kiss’), although the film is best summed up by the Doc Pomus classic ‘I Don’t Know You’.

Short Cuts may conjure up lives of quiet desperation, yet it does so with great humanity and a leavening sense of humour. The superb cast turn in universally rewarding performances. There are a lot of people to get to know, but by the time the film is over you feel you do know them, probably better than they know themselves. Like a good book, Altman’s inspired literary adaptation is difficult to put down, and (even at three hours and eight minutes) over too soon.