So bad it was embarrassing

Rating: 1/10 (17 December 1999)

What a disappointment. Kidman and Cruise must have had stars in their eyes when they agreed to star in Kubrick's last film. I'm kind of glad Kubrick didn't have to see the reviews for this movie....it is sad to see an icon flop. The whole idea of the movie, that a well educated contemporary man would have some kind of breakdown when he discovered that his wife had a sexual fantasy about another man is ludicrous. Kidman's (over)acting in her "stoned" scene was like a scene from "Reefer Madness". I expected to see a sophisticated erotic film that delved into sexual obsession. What I saw was a movie from a director who seemed to have a silly, old fashioned hooded cloak fetish. I gave this movie a 1 and hope that Cruise and Kidman do better in choosing scripts in the future and forget about making "art" films.