Kubrick's Last Haunting Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2005)

This was Stanley Kubrick's last film, completed shortly before his death and twelve years after its predecessor, "Full Metal Jacket". Kubrick was capable of producing brilliantly original films quite different to anything else, such as "A Clockwork Orange", and "Eyes Wide Shut" is another example of this ability. It can be seen as an erotic film, but that does not mean that it is pornographic or titillating. Rather, it is erotic in the sense that it deals with issues relating to physical love and sexuality, but it deals with them in an intelligent, sober manner.
The mood of eroticism is set from the start. Bill Harford, a New York doctor , and his wife Alice have been invited to a Christmas party given by Victor Ziegler, one of his patients. At the party Harford is called to treat a naked young woman who is suffering from a drugs overdose. (It turns out that she is a prostitute). Both Harford and Alice flirt with others, he with two young models, she with a smooth but lecherous older man. Returning home, they get involved in a discussion about sexual attraction and jealousy, which leads Alice to confess that she once came close to being unfaithful.
On the surface, Harford is a man who seems to have everything going for him- affluence, a successful practice which includes many wealthy and influential patients, of whom Ziegler is one, a luxurious apartment, marriage to an attractive wife and a young daughter. Like many films, however, this one is concerned to explore the hidden depths of character that can lie below a surface appearance of normality. Harford is called away from his discussions with Alice by a telephone call to attend a patient, and is plunged into a series of increasingly bizarre sexual encounters. The daughter of a dead patient attempts to seduce him, there is a meeting with another prostitute, he encounters an eccentric Eastern European costume-hire shop owner with a nymphomaniac daughter. The strangest of Harford's adventures comes after he meets Nick Nightingale, an old friend from medical college, in a bar. Nick is now working as a musician, and tells Harford of a mansion near the city where the rich and powerful meet to take part in sexual orgies, something Nick knows about because he is among those employed to provide musical entertainment at these gatherings. He tells Harford that one is due to take place that night and gives him the information he will need, including the password, to gatecrash the event.
This is a multi-layered film that defies any simple interpretation. Harford's adventures can be interpreted either as reality, or as a sexual fantasy, or as a dream. The lack of any definite answer to this question is, however, a strength rather than a weakness. There is certainly something dreamlike about the film, especially the part dealing with his night-time odyssey through the city. (Most of the film, in fact, takes place either at night or in darkened rooms; only a few scenes take place in daylight). The orgy itself- the key scene in the film- is dealt with in a particularly surreal, hallucinatory style. It takes place in an opulent but chilly stately home, and takes the form of a strange, quasi-religious ritual performed by masked participants to the accompaniment of weird music. The women are all naked except for their masks, the men dressed in long hooded gowns similar to the robes worn by monks.
On one level the film is about contemporary neuroses, both sexual and otherwise. Some of Harford's encounters can be seen as symbolic of fears about sexually transmitted disease (the prostitute he meets turns out to be HIV-positive) or sexual orientation (he is twice mistaken for a homosexual, once by a gang of hooligans and once by a gay hotel receptionist who tries to chat him up). The strange orgy, organised by a secretive group of men drawn from America's powerful and wealthy classes, may reflect conspiracy theories about domination by elite secret societies who ruthlessly exclude the public from their deliberations. Harford's attempt to gatecrash ends in failure when he is both literally and metaphorically unmasked as an impostor. On the other hand, this scene may have symbolic overtones about anonymous, impersonal sex or Freudian ones about fear of castration or impotence; Harford never takes part in any sexual activity, but remains a voyeur.
Despite its dark overtones and disturbing symbolism, the film actually has an optimistic conclusion. Without wanting to give too much away, I can say that Harford makes some startling discoveries about both a friend and his wife, but these lead to a reconciliation between himself and Alice and a strengthening of their marriage. The action takes place just before Christmas, and brightly lit Christmas trees are a recurrent image, appearing in a number of scenes. These can be interpreted either as specifically Christian images or as more generalised symbols of hope and goodwill.
I was never really convinced by Nicole Kidman, whose Alice too often seemed an odd mixture of childishness and sexual forthrightness. Tom Cruise, however, was very good in the main role of Harford. At times (as in "The Last Samurai") he can be guilty of overacting, but there was no trace of that here; his performance remained calm, controlled and deliberate, despite the bizarre experiences his character was going through. That Harford seemed emotionally in control throughout perhaps strengthens the idea that his adventures are to be interpreted as a dream or fantasy (as perhaps does the title).
The music for the film is particularly memorable; not just that during the orgy scene, but also the recurrent simple piano motif and that Shostakovich waltz which is in itself capable of summoning up an atmosphere of elegant decadence. Kubrick's last film is also his last masterpiece, a strange, haunting fantasy and a work to stand alongside earlier masterpieces such as "Paths of Glory", "Spartacus", "Dr Strangelove" and "A Clockwork Orange". 9/10