Sureal Dream...A great finale by Kubrick

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 1999)

Eyes Wide Shut will imediately alienate or entice its viewers. Walking out of the theatre, there were many people commenting on how bad it was. For a person looking for a porn film, I guess Eyes Wide Shut had too much plot and too little sex. For a person looking for an erotic thriller, I guess Eyes Wide Shut had too many open-ended questions and too few climatic scenes filled with answers. But for a person looking for a peek into the mind, into that Freudian unconscious, Eyes Wide Shut had plenty of images to contemplate.
First of all, like all of Kubrick's films, Eyes Wide Shut is about images, visuals. Durring Cruise's "night on the town" Kubrick's grainy film mixed with his extensive backlighting creates a dream-like state. The camera is slow and methodic. It shows us all we need to see in this urban dreamscape (minus those pesky digital images!). Because thats what Eyes Wide Shut is: a tour of the human dreamscape, or at least the seedier side of it.
The plot moves slowly not concerned that it has left some questions unanswered, because this isn't a film about answers. Here we see another Kubrick signature, the open-ended ending. When those credits role, you'll probably still have questions or maybe you'll want to know what just hit you. Where did Kubrick just take you? What did you just see? I must say that one viewing, which is all that I have had, is insufficient to answer those questions completely.
Eyes Wide Shut is an excellent movie that makes you think. Not like The Usual Suspects, but like Persona or 2001 or Blue Velvet, another dream caught up in dreams. It doesn't keep you guessing, it keeps you thinking...well after the credits role. One thing is clear though, this is a must see finale to a wonderful career.