Perhaps Kubrick's most emotionally accessible film

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2012)

As fascinating as they are Kubrick's other films from this are about people and events you are not likely to experience in real life. In this movie Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) may be living a New York City lifestyle beyond the financial reach of most of us, but it is easy to identify with their emotional lives. They have been married for nine years and the opening scene establishes how comfortable they are with each other, maybe too comfortable. For example, in preparing for an upscale party given by a wealthy friend, Bill is looking in the mirror while Alice is on the toilet. She is dressed in an elegant black gown and when she gets up Bill does not even look at her as he tells her she looks great.
At the party both Bill and Alice are the subjects of attempted seductions. The scene between Bill and Alice in their Manhattan apartment after the party is pivotal, and one of the best in the movie. It shows just what a delicate balance relationships can be in. Alice was a little suspicious of Bill's disappearing after she had seen him with two young women at the party and in her interrogation of her husband she subtly twists everything he says to put him on the spot. For her part she confesses to a past obsession with a Naval officer that she had seen only once from a distance. Her confession punctures Bill's confidence in their relationship as he imagines Alice together with the officer. But, beyond the jealousy, Bill's imaginings spark a sexual passion in him. This scene sets up the entire rest of the movie, not only the story line, but the filming. Kubrick's use of color in this movie is striking, lushly lighted foregrounds with contrasting backgrounds. The scene that has Alice softly lighted standing in a doorway with the room behind her a deep blue is typical.
In ultimate frustration Bill leaves the apartment to wander the streets of New York. He meets an old friend in a bar and the intrigue begins. Bill winds up at an exclusive ritualistic sexual orgy where everyone wears a medieval mask. Anyone who has seen this movie will remember the orgy scenes--they are mesmerizing, but not pornographic. One thing that is pressed home is how much of sex is driven by what is imagined, both good and bad.
As things progress the movie takes on the aspects of part thriller and part comedy. In the end the audience is left asking what is real and what is fake. But at least the relationship between Bill and Alice is resolved.
I can't remember when a musical score has played such an important part in a movie. The romantic Shostakovitch Russian Waltz is a perfect background for the lighter scenes, but it is the second movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata that adds a particularly haunting quality to the scenes where Bill is wandering in the darkness. I had not realized how the playing of a single note on a piano can build tension.
There are scenes that seemed superfluous to me, like the scene where Bill runs into a bunch of rowdies who hector him on the street, accusing him of being gay.
This film adds to the distinguished list of accomplishments of a great director.