Expanding the Boundaries of Film

Rating: Null/10 (17 April 2000)

So here's what happens. Stanley Kubrick hibernates for ten years, then, in a departure from his predilection never to use big stars, snatches up the sexiest couple in Hollywood at the respective pinnacles of their careers. A memo is circulated saying that "Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman will be starring in a Kubrick film dealing with sexual betrayal and exploration."

Then for THREE YEARS no one hears ANYTHING about this movie, rumors abound and nobody in the know bothers to do anything about it. Cruise and Kidman don't even give interviews.
The last film ever cut by Kubrick is a trailer that promises nothing but sex. The hype begins.
When the film finally comes out, to immense excitement, everybody expects it to be the "sexiest movie ever made." And it turns out to be a) "relentlessly unsexy" and b) all about people searching for divinity in sex, then discovering that it isn't all it's cracked up to be. After a buildup of three hours, throughout which the audience is denied the pleasure of seeing either of the beautiful stars in the act, Kidman closes the piece with a promise to do so--in the most common of terms--and we finally get... our blackout.
The movie spends two weeks at the top and proceeds to bomb when everybody hears that it's not what they wanted.
Is it me, or was Kubrick using his understanding of the human psyche to make sure that the last laugh was on all of us?