eyes wide shut isn’t the masterpiece many were hoping to see in stanley kubrick’s final film , but it is an impressive achievement ; a mesmerizing , haunting , adult psychodrama about marriage , fidelity and sex .
it’s a stanley kubrick film from beginning to end , consistently exhibiting the auteur’s trademark penchant for long , continuous takes , his unparalleled deftness behind the camera and his uncanny ability to extract gorgeous performances from his exhausted cast ( indeed , eyes wide shut attained infamy even before its release for its notoriously laborious shoot : kubrick , a renowned perfectionist , reportedly held his cast ” hostage ” on the set for nearly a year ) .
in an uncharacteristic maneuver , kubrick cast two big-name stars in the lead roles , namely real-life husband and wife tom cruise and nicole kidman .
they play bill and alice harford , a volatile couple who , during the course of a couple nights , ponder the validity of the idea that a husband and a wife must be faithful to each other .
he is an m . d . , she’s unemployed and we are introduced to them as they are getting ready to go to a fancy party .
at the affair , they are both propositioned and both nearly succumb to the temptation to play around with someone else .
when they return to their lavish new york apartment kidman ( after smoking a dash of weed ) inquires whether her husband had sex with two models who approached him during the night .
he ( truthfully ) says that he did not and asks what happened with that hungarian guy she was dancing with .
they proceed to argue until alice tells her spouse a lustful story : evidently some time ago , she had a thing for a young naval officer .
she admits that she was ready to give up her whole future with bill and their young daughter if this guy wanted her even for one night .
bill is jolted by alice’s story and we anticipate his reaction , but at that moment he gets a phone call and has to go ” show his face ” at the house of a just-deceased patient .
this turns out to be the beginning of a long and eventful night on the town .
the daughter of the dead patient hits on him but he wisely turns her down .
he almost does the dirty deed with a kindly hooker who approaches him on the street .
then , through a series of coincidences , he winds up at a gothic mansion where a ritualistic ( and frankly , creepy ) orgy takes place , with costumed people performing various public sex acts on each other .
erotic dread mounts as cruise ( who’s not supposed to be there ) wonders the spacious halls watching the ” action ” until he is discovered to be an outsider .
much hoopla has been raised over the fact that warner bros . digitally edited the orgy scene .
with the help of a computer , they put in cloaked figures to block some of the actual sex acts ( they can still be seen , just not in all their glory ) in order to avoid the dreaded nc-17 rating .
european viewers will see the film as kubrick envisioned it .
roger ebert calls the american version the ” austin powers version , ” and many others have bashed the alterations .
i am of the potentially controversial opinion that the figures only supplement the scene’s mystical atmosphere .
the first thing one notices about eyes wide shut is how it looks .
this is an artful , distinctively gorgeous production , shot in dark , moody hues and featuring some elaborate , beautiful scenery .
from the giant mansion used in the film’s centerpiece to the decor at the christmas party to the harford’s apartment , this film is always a pleasure to look at .
to boot , a great soundtrack makes it more atmospheric still .
at the core , behind the graphic , controversial content and unappealing mood , this is a good-natured movie that emphasizes the importance of fidelity .
it looks at sex as almost perfunctory by portraying it as unnerving rather than erotic .
it’s something superficial and yet something necessary to achieve a deeper relationship .
at the end , it seems , bill’s eyes are wide open to the special kind of love he and his wife have for each other , more meaningful than anything he could ever hope to find on the streets of new york .
kubrick elicits wonderful performances from both cruise and kidman .
tom is completely convincing as dr . harford , a man who seems guided solely by destiny , with no control of the course his life will take .
nicole projects a quiet intensity as the jittery yet aggressive wife and her performance is stunningly effective : she’s headed for an oscar nod .
the movie has some help from a similarly strong supporting cast , at the head of which is director-cum-thespian sidney pollock , enigmatic and articulate as harford’s mysterious friend .
eyes wide shut is not perfect : the last hour could have used a slightly more scissor-happy editor and both cruise and kidman are too good- looking for me to believe that either would have a very strong temptation to philander .
still , this is an important work from a great director , and while it may not be on par with some of stanley kubrick’s best it is a worthy final film , a complex exploration of jealousy and faithfulness .
? 1999 eugene novikov‰ ;