does not live up to Kubric's standard

Rating: 7/10 (17 August 1999)

In his old age, the late great Stanley Kubric may well have gone off the deep end, much like a character in one of his last films, "The Shining", as this pointless and underdeveloped urban epic demonstrates. Does as banal a subject as martial fidelity problems require such a grandiose, overstuffed and overacted treatment ? Is a sequence where an 18th century venetian carnival is coupled with an orgiastic cult ritual have any relation to modern borgeuois America? Would prominent citizens or anyone for that matter actually want to engage in the kind of debauchery witnessed by Cruise ? Does a movie which opens with Nicole Kidman's bare behind and closes with her utterance of the f-word have reasonable merit? Odd characters who drop in and out of the plot, a ludicrous pseudo-suspense of the piano score, an extremely slow buildup which ends abruptly at about a third of its logical progression, are some of the picture's more baffling aspects. Indeed, the question that arises as the credits begin to roll is not "what happened?", but "why?" Why was Kubric compelled to make this ? Was it the voyeristic prospect of working with Nicole and scores of other nude women? Hopefully not just that. Regardless of his motives, the end result by no means makes the impression of a total waste, possessing the kind of lush camerawork we'd come to expect over the years, as well as a consistent level of interest that renders "Eyes Wide Shut", like all of the auteur's creative output, worthy of discussion and repeat viewing.