The film features an ensemble cast including Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Fred Ward, Anne Archer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn, Jack Lemmon, Frances McDormand, Lori Singer, Andie MacDowell, Buck Henry, Lily Tomlin, actress and singer Annie Ross, and musicians Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett, and Tom Waits.

Among the other characters are Doreen Piggot, a waitress married to an alcoholic limo driver named Earl, and television commentator Howard Finnigan, who lives next door to cabaret singer Tess and her daughter Zoe.

However, Howard, wanting to keep the phone line free, abruptly ends the calls, leading to frustration on Andy's part.

A glimmer of hope arises when Casey's eyes flutter, but tragically, he suddenly dies, leaving Howard and Anne devastated.

Meanwhile, Zoe, overwhelmed by her mother's alcoholism, Casey's death, and her own isolation, commits suicide by starting her car engine inside the garage.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Robert Altman's ensemble drama deftly integrates its disparate characters and episodes into a funny, poignant, emotionally satisfying whole.

Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' captures that uneasiness perfectly in its interlocking stories about people who seem trapped in the present, always juggling.

"[9] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "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.

"[10] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four out of four stars and called it "a brilliant companion piece" to The Player.

Some performances are stronger than others, some situations more entertaining, and some choices Altman has made, like an overreliance on female nudity that borders on the exploitative, difficult to defend.

"[12] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post panned the film as "a cynical, sexist and shallow work" populated with "whiny, inert and mostly unlikable characters.

[31][32] Anne Rapp, who wrote Cookie's Fortune and Dr. T & The Women for Altman, was commissioned to adapt more Carver stories into a screenplay which he did not film.