The choice of Cruise as the lead

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2003)

This post is in response to a few of the recent comments that I viewed. Franck (Soysoy), I felt posted a very good understanding of the character, but I feel this poster missed the big picture. Before seeing the film I was shocked that Cruise was the lead (although I am not enamored with Matthew Modine either). But after seeing the film, I have come to realize that Cruise was the perfect choice for the role.
Cruise, like so many actors (even some I enjoy like Christopher Walken) can only play one role. With Cruise it is the popular (cliche charm) and boyish (immature and shallow) leading man. Lucky for him, this may be the most common hollywood role. This is the exact character that Kubrick is making fun of while exploring in EWS.
Alice opens his eyes (that he must keep wide shut), in the beginning bedroom scene, to the fact that his conceptions of love and how a woman feels are shallow conventional concoctions and thus he has no clue what the reality is. Bill says, " I don't want to put it into words." He does not want to screw around with all these thoughts he just wants to screw Alice. She laughs at him; she understands his world while he is clueless of hers. The glasses she wears are a hint to her ability to see through her husband. Dr. Harford is just a shell, like the mask that he finds sleeping next to Alice.
By the end of the film, after all of Bill's adventures and his confession, Bill is lost and lays himself at the feet of his much more sophisticated wife. She seems regretful that she ever made him think about all of this (by confessing to him about an infidelity) and just wants to go back to the shallow but stable relationship they've always had. I don't remember the exact quote, but something like: we're just going to f***.