I can't stop looking at the mouth. The new The Cut poster is basically a scream—teeth bared, lips torn, pores glittering with sweat like road salt. Boxing movies usually frame triumph. This one frames damage. And that's the point. Sean Ellis' film doesn't romanticize camp montages; it fetishizes the long, mean math of dropping weight. Twenty-six pounds in six days onscreen. A body becoming a negotiation table.
Look closer: the title slams across the canvas in hazard-red—THE CUT—while the lower panel locks us in the ring under pallid stadium lights. On the right, a TIFF 2024 laurel plants its flag. And centered beneath the title, a blaring pull-quote credits Variety's Siddhant Adlakha: “Orlando Bloom gives an all-time great performance.” The design is unsubtle, deliberately so; pain sells, and this sells pain as process, not prize. (The TIFF selection is printed directly on the poster; theatrical release is confirmed for September 5, 2025.)
Here's the thing: Bloom didn't just imagine deprivation—he lived a (safer) version of it. He's said the prep left him “exhausted… hangry… a horrible person to be around,” and that an ultra-restrictive tuna-and-cucumber diet stripped him of energy and focus. It's not a miracle hack; it's a caution sign, and he's blunt about the toll.
What I like—no, respect—is how the film reframes the boxer movie as a psychological thriller first, sports drama second. TIFF coverage last fall already clocked the focus on the mind-body grind and the manipulative push-pull of coaching. The poster leans into that thesis: a face as landscape, the ring as afterthought.
There's also a second heartbeat here: Caitríona Balfe's Caitlin. In conversation, Balfe has mapped a full off-screen history—Ballyfermot roots, a boxing family that never truly made space for her, recovery, and a hard, pragmatic love for the gym she runs with Bloom's Boxer. That backstory shades the image; the scream isn't just pain—it's dependency, pride, relapse, teamwork, tough love. When the film asks how far you'd go for someone, the poster answers: too far, maybe.
Genre heads will clock the lineage—Raging Bull's monochrome martyrdom, The Wrestler's fluorescent ache—but Ellis' angle is narrower, meaner: the ritualized self-harm of the weigh-in. Weight cutting as horror device. The typography shouts; the grain rasps; even the kerning feels dehydrated. Gorgeous. Grating. Gorgeous again.
And yes: mark your calendar. The TIFF 2024 laurel on the art is real, and the film's theatrical date is locked for September 5, 2025. If the poster's job is to telegraph the movie you're getting, consider me warned and—against my better judgment—intrigued.
Sources & further reading
Entertainment Weekly on Bloom's extreme prep and why it isn't a “miracle” method. EW.com
Reuters' TIFF coverage on the film's psychological focus and festival berth. Reuters
5 Things This Poster Tells Us
Pain is the pitch. No hero pose—just a raw, unglamorous close-up that centers damage over victory.
Weight cutting is the hook. The tagline and imagery sell the process that happens before the fight, not the fight itself.
Festival bona fides matter. TIFF 2024's laurel is front-and-center, positioning this as prestige-leaning, not pulp. Reuters
Performance first marketing. The Variety pull-quote singles out Bloom, which tracks with early chatter: come for the transformation.
Date clarity. “In Theatres September 5” anchors the campaign; the U.S. release is confirmed for Sept 5, 2025.
