After Hours meets The Story of O via Lolita.

Rating: Null/10 (16 July 1999)

Although it is haunting in places, this is a weak farewell for Kubrick. The film is derivative and never completely convincing--the drawn out, profanity-laden dialogue strains for drama but is simply boring. Aside from the US release electronic editing of the orgy scene, many earlier reported scenes are missing, although the motivations and characters remain. The film plays like a big joke on Cruise's idol image and the gossip about his sexuality. Both he and Kidman, however, do fine acting given the often banal material, and several of the supporting cast steal the film (Alan Cumming!). The Kubrick style is so stated as to seem almost self-conscious. One can easily ignore the narrative and just tally the bathrooms, dinner tables, corpses, nymphets, red colors, wide angle shots, overhead lighting, neo-classical interiors, etc. to keep busy until the film finally picks up steam in the final hour. Regardless of what Cruise and WB may say, I'll bet there is a REAL director's cut somewhere (or elements thereof) which would certainly make this truncated mess the film it should have been. In all of the footage shot there might well be a landmark vision of sexual frustration, experimentation and voyeurism that would have brought Schnitzler's brilliant original to the end of this century. We are given only traces.