I Wanted To Like This Film, I Really, Really Did....

Rating: Null/10 (22 October 2000)

I am a Stanley Kubrick devotee who has seen (and adored) every one of his movies, even Barry Lyndon. But I just can't give this movie a positive review, even though it breaks my heart.
I must have looked at my watch 5 times during the first half-hour alone. Nicole Kidman was decent in "To Die For" and a couple of other films, but she was dull, dull, dull in this movie. Her affected matter of speech, her drawing out every word ("If.......you......only.......knew.......") as if she were speaking to a group of mentally challenged individuals, and her oh-so-eloquent last line only magnified my annoyance.
I read the book on which this movie was based, and the book outshines the movie in every aspect. Arthur Schnitzler's characters are finely described, the plot is riveting, and you end the book with more questions than you began. The movie bored me to sleep.
I'm not going to roll out the plot, because that has been done by nearly everyone else on here, and I'd just be regurgitating what everyone else stated. I admired the cinematography, the scenery (not that I believed that it was Manhattan - like another reviewer said, Manhattan is never that clean), and Kubrick's ambition. I respect and admire his attempt to pick a relatively obscure (at least here in America) volume of work and put it on film - but the result left me feeling dreary, bored, and annoyed - annoyed at myself for not liking this movie, annoyed at not waiting until it came out on video where I could at least fall asleep in the comfort of my own home, and annoyed that it wasn't more true to the book. Purely selfish reasons to be annoyed, but I couldn't, and can't, help myself from giving this movie a thumbs down.
I badly, BADLY, wanted to enjoy and appreciate this movie, but I didn't care for the acting, the too-nicely-wrapped-up-in-a-neat-package-with-a-bow-on-top ending, or the entire movie overall. Maybe in a few years, when I haven't seen this movie in a while, and I remember that this was Kubrick's last movie, I'll re-watch and (hopefully) see the merits that the pro-EWS posters are talking about. I can only hope, because I want to love and appreciate everything Kubrick has given us. But right now, I can't, I just can't.