Temptations

Rating: Null/10 (30 April 2001)

I haven't seen any other movies made by Kubrick, except "2001" and that was a long time ago, when I was too young to understand it, therefore I think my comment of this movie won't be biased because of comparison to his previous work. Spoiler Alert So, what is EWS about? Well, if you ask me, EWS is a movie about temptation. Allow me to explain. I'm sure everyone is familiar with this term: "Just because I am married, it doesn't mean I am dead.". See, when you get married, in spite of the fact that you made an official promise in front of witnesses and made an oath that you'll dedicate the rest of your life to one and only person, you still can't shut off your human nature. Men don't stop looking at other beautiful women and fantasizing about them just because they got married - the same thing goes for women. And they still like it when someone else finds THEM attractive and when they know that they didn't lose the ability to seduce. It's HUMAN NATURE, folks. However, because they are married, whenever they meet a temptation (to be with another person), they must find a way to resist that temptation - some people do and some people don't. So, enter Bill and Alice, our characters from the movie.
I'll begin with Bill. First he meets those two girls at the party and it is more than obvious that they want to have sex with him. And he enjoys the attention he gets. Why? Because of what I've said before - it's a human nature. However, he gets interrupted when they call him upstairs to help one overdosed girl.
Then, later on, when he visits his late patient's daughter, at one point she starts kissing him and though it looks like he feels awkward (her dead father is only 2-3 meters away, doh), he doesn't run away either. However, her boyfriend comes home and they're interrupted.
Then he decides to go to an empty apartment with a prostitute. It's quite obvious he KNEW what he was doing, isn't it? And it seemed to me that something would have happened between them... if only it hadn't been for that phone call from his wife that brought him back to reality. Again, he was interrupted.
And finally, the orgy. He also went there because he WANTED to (he was practically desperate to attend that event: hey, he was willing to pay 200$ more for a costume and he woke up the owner of costume's store in the middle of the night!) and again, he had the opportunity to have sex. Yet, he got interrupted again when they discovered he was an outsider.
So, Bill faces temptation (to have sex with someone who is not his wife) four times in the movie. Does he resist it? We actually never find out, cause he gets interrupted by someone else every time. So, what is the message of this? That men need very little to take the opportunity to shag an attractive woman, and the only thing that can stop them is an outside "force"? It doesn't look very flattering for guys, does it? :)
But what about girls and their temptations, their fantasies? Do women have sexual fantasies about other men? Of course they do. The only problem is that men refuse to accept it cause it harms their male egos. That is why Bill was so shocked when Alice told him about her sexual fantasy about that navy guy. So, Alice fantasized as well...
And she also had the opportunity to cheat on her husband. First, with that navy guy - yet she didn't do it. Again, not because she didn't want to but because he (navy guy)left. She even said at one point something like: "When I found out he left, I felt relief." I think this says it all, doesn't it?
And then, she had another opportunity at the party, with Sandor. She obviously LOVED the attention he was giving to her (remember that part about human nature?), but she managed to resist him. She managed to resist the temptation. So, what does that mean? That women are able to resist the tempation (to be with other guy), at least from time to time, unlike men? Does that mean that females are more faithful by nature? Hmmmm... could be. I assume that Alice refused to "go upstairs" with Sandor cause she felt guilt. That's why she reminded him that she was married. And she also felt guilt when she had that dream in which she has sex with other man. I remember, I was thinking: "My God, woman! It was only a DREAM!!!" Yet, it affected her so deeply. That because women take infidelity more seriously than men do - at least that's what it looked like in this movie. And that is why women resist the temptation better than men.
So, what happens at the end? They find out aobut each other's "affairs" and they have to decide what they're going to do with their future. And then, they finally realize the solution: they have EACH OTHER. I think the message of this movie is: if you're married, it's inevitable that sooner of later you'll meet someone else that you'll find attractive and/or they'll find you attractive and your HUMAN need to seduce and be seduced will come out and you'll have a temptation to face. And the only way you can resist that temptation is that you remember that you DON'T NEED someone else, cause you already have at home someone that YOU chose to spend the rest of your life with. You don't need to go to parties, empty apartments, orgies... to have some lovin' - it's waiting for you at home.
As far as I'm concerned, this movie is a tribute to fidelity. And that is why I like it so much. 10 out of 10.