Not Your Grandfather's Erotic Thriller (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (15 August 2000)

In my review of "Phantom Menace" I wrote that perhaps a director is allowed only one cultural icon per lifetime. I had forgotten Stanley Kubrick. He produced them in spades.
Actually, to call "Eyes Wide Shut" an erotic thriller is to miss the point. True, sex and sexuality dominate its themes and it's structured like a thriller, but Kubrick's final film is far more. On the one hand it's pure Kubrick, replete with mind-shattering images. It also continues Kubrick's fascination with journeys. From the journey to destruction in "Dr. Strangelove" to journeys through social madness in "Clockwork Orange" and the nature of reality in "The Shining," and culminating in humanity's search for enlightenment in "2001," Kubrick's work has been concerned with such journeys. This time, a New York society doctor ventures into a socially constructed reality that few of us have seen or will admit.
Then again, "Eyes Wide Shut" is one of those wonderful films that's more interesting for what it doesn't say than for what it says.
Through a bizarre series of coincidences, Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) discovers a hazy, ill-defined sexual underworld, one which may include murder. He meets a series of sleazy characters, all of whom seem to be involved with whatever it is. Sinister plot points and themes lurk just off camera but are not seen. This is Kubrick's genius: the ability to draw us into the mystery even as he tells us there is no solution.
The much-hyped cult-orgy scene occupies only a few minutes of screen time. Kubrick's imagery is stunning and Fellini-esquire, draped in an evocative chant using a sound technique borrowed from David Lynch. But again, what is interesting is what is not said. What do the strange rituals mean? Is it a religious cult? A secret society? Or just a sex club, by and for the very bored very rich? We aren't told. Can we believe the version he gets from a friend-member? The mask Harford wore--and later hid--appears beside his sleeping wife. Did she find it, or was it placed there? Does she know more than she says? Again, no information. Always there is the tantalizing hint of an answer just out of his (and our) reach. Though only a minute was cut out, Kubrick often leaves small markers in odd places within his films. One would wish that the version seen in more grown-up nations were available, rather than the eviscerated print allowed in the States.
Following this scene, the film's direction changes completely. The score becomes atmospheric and menacing; reality becomes distorted. As he struggles to learn the truth, Harford is told by one friend that he is "out of his depth." Indeed. He is found out because though he is part of the upper class, those he pursues turn out to be the unbelievably rich and powerful. Their reality is not his. Kubrick is telling us that ultimately, our social world builds our reality.
Perhaps this is the theme of "Eyes Wide Shut"--that there exist social realities that are as unknowable to us as the incomprehensible events witnessed by Dr. Harford. As others have pointed out, his journey is much like the one that unfolds in Scorsese's "After Hours"--we are never really told the whole story but we (and the characters) are left with the distinct feeling that Something Is Going On. "After Hours" can be hard to find, but try to see them both. Better yet, rent them the same night.