Predictable and memorable, simplistic and dreamlike

Rating: 5/10 (6 March 2020)

I figured out the plot twist about half-way into the movie. This doesn't mean that the film was bad, but it was neither a masterpiece, nor a flop. Kubrick's skill as a director of memorable scenes shines through, but so does his inability to create convincing human behavior and interactions. Here are some of the positives and negatives of the film:

The characters of the doctor and his wife are not well-developed. Their child serves as an inanimate prop during the whole movie, and even disappears during the last scene, as her parents, and the viewer forget she ever existed. The conspiratorial motives of the wife and the personal dilemma and temptations of the doctor are not well written or well-acted. Their behavior seems drugged and dreamlike, even in scenes where they are supposed to be alert.

+ The scenes of the masquerade were truly memorable and creepy - people who have watched this film a long time ago still remember these scenes and not much else. But unlike "The Shining", where the story is also memorable, this is pretty much all they remember.

The moral of the film is immediately apparent after the first ten minutes. The wife is able to overcome her temptations and remain loyal, whereas the husband is a clueless a-hole who needs to be tested and justly re-educated. As soon as the doctor starts to behave immorally towards his former schoolmate and his wife, we understand that the aim of the movie is to punish and re-educate the antihero. The doctor is frightened to death by his wife's ruse - she has staged the whole thing in order to test him, spark jealousy, and make him fear for her and appreciate her. He does. But he never gets a true understanding of what his wife wanted him to learn in the first place (to understand a woman's temptations, to appreciate her loyalty and feel jealous because of that).

+ The plot twist is never explicitly stated - the wife's plot is never revealed, and it is up to the discerning viewer to spot the easter eggs and turn the cogwheels in their mind. With enough imagination, the viewer can even create alternative explanations, but overall, the wife's collusion with the masked men is more than apparent throughout the movie.

The movie is too slow, and I usually enjoy slow movies. But the plot could well be fitted into a 40-minute "Twilight Zone"episode, without considerable change in the pace. The dialogue felt choppy, with lots of unnecessary pauses, and this added to the unnatural behavior of the actors. The slow pace was great in the lead-up to the masquerade scene, not so much in the doctor's sleepwalking around the city.

Overall, it's a film that can make you feel smart, but this doesn't mean it's a masterpiece. A 5 out of 10 is a fair average between the overly positive and overly negative reviews on IMDB.