Is 'rehab' indicated after viewing?

Rating: Null/10 (11 December 2005)

This is a film based on a novella, Traumnovelle, written by Arthur Schnitzer in 1926, apparently concerning just the party-crashing into a dead-eyed sex party of oligarchs that is the basic plot of Kubrick's film. Kubrick has the whole mess set in and around Christmas. There are 37 scenes in the film, mostly including Tom Cruise; which is rather unfortunate (this was really a part for Jack Nicholson). Worse are the scenes of his wife, Kidmann, playing the character, Alice, not for her beautiful if somewhat undeveloped form, often shown unclothed, but for her attempt to show affection to her husband. She seems miscast, and uncomfortable. But so does he as a physician, named Dr. Bill. Sydney Pollack, as one of his wealthy patients, makes an early entrance as the host of a fancy ballroom party. Cruise recognizes a not too bright med school buddy in the piano player, one Nick Nightingale, who tells him to drop by a few weeks later at the, Sonata Cafe. He meets some dopey woman whom he saved as they talk about, rainbows. Meanwhile wife, Alice, gets drunk, seems to adopt a Melanie Griffith accent, and strikes up a conversation with a 'hungarian' actor-type who spouts Ovid, and desperately wants to show her 'sculputures', upstairs. Meanwhile Pollack calls Bill to attend to a hooker named, Mandy, sitting bare naked in a stuffed chair, having taken some sort of overdose. Bill says she is lucky to 'survive', and needs 'rehab'. Keep it confidential, says Pollack.
So one evening Bill and Alice smoke pot in their underwear (it's the plot, trust me). And Alice mentions the Ovid-guy, trying to inexplicably strike up a jealousy argument. After some painfully convulsive laughter, which is apparently what pot does to Alice, she reveals that she wanted to have an affair with some Navy guy, back when, but never quite did. But she goes on and on about it to make Bill jealous.
And at that very moment, jealous Bill gets a phone call to visit the apartment of a patient who just died. The daughter is there, crying, talking about an impending marriage to some professor, when she launches herself at Bill and proclaims a 'love for you'. The prof. turns out to be Greg, from Dharma and Greg, who saunters in after she has thrown herself at Bill. And Bill makes his quick exit. He takes to walking the streets, and then quickly meets a hooker, who has him to her apartment. Alice calls him on the cell, and he claims he's waiting for 'relatives to arrive'. He quickly leaves, but pays the hooker $150 anyway. And he winds up at the Sonata Cafe.
Now Nick and his backing band just finish their jazz set as in walks Dr. Bill. And Nick says he has another appointment soon, which he makes out to be so mysterious that Bill is interested. Nick gets a call on his cell and writes down a word, Fidelio. He tells Bill it's a password. Bill presses him. He gives Bill the address and apparently, off camera, describes what sort of costume is expected. So Bill is off to the costume shop, apparently owned by another patient, called, Rainbow Fashions. Some other guy now runs the shop, and agrees to open at that hour for a $200 premium. But he discovers his daughter in the back with two sissy Japanese men, doing whatever. He locks the Japanese in the room, threatening to call the cops, banishes his daughter to her room, and outfits Dr. Bill with his required costume. Off Bill goes in a taxicab.
He pulls up to an estate with a fancy gated entrance. He gives the password, Fidelio. And he's in. And what does he see? The well-lit 'orgy' rooms are wood paneled, sporting middle-eastern music as soundtrack, it seems. People watch satanic-type chants, in robes and masks, and then head out as if on sedatives to stand by as others disrobe and copulate. The twist is that these are all supposed to be powerful oligarchs, who cannot let their dark secret see the light of day. Dr. Bill is quickly discovered. A naked woman warns him to leave immediately. But he's called before the 'inquisition', asked the 'password for the house' (a trick question, there is none), and is then threatened. They tell him to strip, and we first hear the annoyingly childish piano tinkling as score. The woman, and from the balcony, says she'll take whatever punishment. So he leaves, apparently forgetting his mask.
In short order, Nick is 'disappeared'. The hooker he didn't engage is diagnosed with AIDS. The costume shop guy has a completely mysterious turnabout, practically offering Dr. Bill his daughter. Bill's followed on the street. And the naked woman from the balcony turns up dead in the morgue. Quite the conspiracy, particularly with the annoying piano all the while (there's no mute button in a theater, just at home). And then Pollack calls him over for a chat. And Pollack lays it out. And he was there at the 'orgy'. The taxi gave away Bill, and that his rental suit still had the receipt in the pocket. He says Nick is just fine. The threats were just a lot of bold talk, with nothing behind them. And the girl was a hooker who was fine when they dropped her off, later. Like Mandy before, she was high risk, or coincidentally overdosed. So no threat, no conspiracy. The oligarchs are harmless.
The final twist is that Dr. Bill returns home to find that Alice has the mask in bed with her. Alice was there, too? Who knows? But he comes clean about his 'night out'. And Alice says, in the closing scene, that 'forever' is too long a time to promise, but that they should at least be grateful they 'survived' their 'adventures', and need 'rehab' (well, they don't say that - that's just for the surviving audience).