Rent Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

An esoteric and erotic journey into the New York night - Eyes Wide Shut review by Philip in Paradiso

Dr. Bill (Tom Cruise) and Alice (Nicole Kidman) Harford live in New York with their daughter, Helena. Bill is a well-liked doctor for the rich, who loves his wife and trusts her to be faithful. One evening, they are smoking cannabis together, when she tells him about an incident during a recent holiday, in Cape Cod, involving another man. Bill's trust in Alice is shattered. There follows an oniric and erotic journey through the dark New York night, through the soft underbelly of the city.

The film, adapted from a 1920s Austrian novella, is one of a kind. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it, although it did remind me of 'The Damned', the masterpiece by L Visconti. The atmosphere, mixing strange encounters, bizarre experiences, unsettling dreams and troubling memories, also reminded me of 'Mulholland Drive' by D Lynch. The film is about what happens when you leave your comfort zone -- the comfort of your set ideas and established relationships. Things become dangerous and unpredictable: it may be exciting, but it's also scary.

The acting is good, the characters (including the minor ones) are memorable, and the music is haunting. It is a great movie, atmospheric and disconcerting. You will think about it for days after seeing it. And there will be many unanswered questions. It all makes sense, and yet none of it does -- like life itself, presumably, in the eyes of S Kubrick who, uncannily, died a week after they had finished shooting the movie, I believe.

Excellent Psychodrama For Christmas! - Eyes Wide Shut review by GI

Director Stanley Kubrick's last film before his untimely death just after its completion. This is an adult relationship drama that dips into a gothic mystery story, it's bizarre, enthralling and a film that asks more questions than it answers. It's also essentially a Christmas time film and offers something very different than what one might expect from a yuletide movie. Tom Cruise plays rich and successful Manhattan doctor, Bill Harford. He and his beautiful wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman) along with their seven year old daughter live in a plush apartment and skirt the edges of the top echelons of the New York society. After attending their rich friend's party a few days before Christmas they have an argument during which Alice confides to Bill a sexual fantasy she once had about a man she saw on holiday. This sends Bill into a suppressed fit of jealousy which results in him having a series of sexually charged experiences in the night time city culminating in his finding out about a strange party that he manages to gain admittance to. The results of this will change his life and his relationship with Alice. Like most of Kubrick's films the narrative begs a variety of readings and this film is often thought to be a revelation about a secret 'elite' that exists and controls society. There's the obvious alluding to Freemasonry here but whatever way it's viewed it certainly goes into some surprising and somewhat weird directions. But there's also humour too and Kidman especially has never been better than she is here. This is a film that is mysterious and enigmatic but definitely a film that hooks you in and makes you want to unravel it's secrets. If you've never seen this then it's recommended.

Kubrick's final film is a scattershot affair, but Kidman rescues it with a seismic performance - Eyes Wide Shut review by TB

Over decades, Stanley Kubrick quite simply reinvented & changed cinema forever, to the extent that Steven Spielberg called 2001 "our generation's Big Bang." When you watched a Kubrick film, you knew you would genuinely see something which would become a trailblazer & the stuff of legend. After a 12 year gap following the release of Full Metal Jacket, he returned for what would become his unexpectedly final film (passing away 6 days after finalising it.)

The expectation & anticipation was off the scale, heightened by the casting of unquestionably the 2 biggest movie stars on the planet at that time, who also happened to be married to each other, costarring together in a film which was marketed as an explicit sexual romp. But Kubrick's final act is not what many cinema-goers expected it to be.

Dr Bill Harford is a highly-regarded & popular doctor, who has a picture-perfect life with his beautiful wife Alice & young daughter, living in New York City. One night after smoking weed with Alice, she confesses to him that on a recent holiday, she fell in love with a handsome sailor & considered abandoning Bill & her family, and has since fantasised about the potential passionate encounters with this mysterious man. This leaves Bill heartbroken & when he is called out on a medical emergency, he then goes on a nighttime odyssey through the seedy underbelly of New York.

The biggest myth to debunk is that this is emphatically not the hardcore sex-fest or erotic thriller which was promised by the marketing material, leading to frenzied ticket sales and the anticipation of seeing Cruise & Kidman naked in the heat of passion. I personally found this way of thinking both ludicrous & funny: one of the most technically acclaimed directors ever suddenly deciding to make a soft-core porn film, let alone Cruise and Kidman agreeing to do it.

Because Eyes Wide Shut is a very different & at times slow-going morality tale. Yes, there is sex & nudity, but this is in no way erotic. The much talked-about orgy is in many ways extremely unerotic, due to the music & the very real sense that most of its participants are in some way imprisoned within that life. Kubrick is clearly far more interested in not only the fragility of marriage & relationships, but also how one revelation can lead to a seismic breakdown of everything you held dear.

Unfortunately, despite all the beauty on screen (by this I mean production design, cinematography & lighting, which of course being a Kubrick film are world-class,) this film is also very boring. Harford is, despite Cruise clearly giving it everything, an extremely boring protagonist in a story which is itself often prone to naval-gazing (Cruise himself has gone on the record stating his dislike of the character, despite his awe of working with Kubrick.) Some of the other actors don't fare much better either, although Alan Cumming has a memorably creepy cameo as a hotel concierge.

But this film is in many ways saved by Kidman. Her performance is extraordinary. Alice is an extremely complicated character, who knows in that moment of honesty, what she is doing, the devastation she is about to unleash. But she is also unbelievably fragile & clearly scared of the consequences of her sexual yearning. The fantasy intimate sequences with the attractive sailor, far from being erotic, are an uncomfortable look at just how far her desires go, irrelevant of their ramifications.

There is no doubt Eyes Wide Shut will stay with you, both as a visual experience but also as a parable about life & relationships. And for many people, if they manage to get all the way to the end, they may not like it that much. But despite my 3 star rating, I was profoundly moved by it, even though it was at times a long slog. And this is in many ways Kidman's best performance, despite my love for Moulin Rouge & Destroyer. She breaks your heart & gives you no easy answers.