Captivating

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2002)

Stanley Kubrick's final movie should not be judged against other domestic dramas or thrillers. It must be compared to his previous films, and you must also take into consideration Kubrick himself. He must not have been well while he made it, and he left behind, a few months after his death, a film that many have called "unfinished." (Perhaps he meant to put some different music over the "piano piece" that is remembered by most people who've seen this movie). The film is like a dream; not much of the central orgy passage makes sense in relation to the events before or after it, but the film is gripping nonetheless. It is basically about what lack of communication between two people can do to a marriage, or in the case of Tom Cruise's character, one's sanity. His "odyssey" that leads to the Long Island mansion is the result of what happens when a husband takes a wrong turn, and acts on pure impulse, after an argument with this wife and turning off his emotions, when he should have been upfront with them. Much has been said about the central orgy sequence, which for me recalled The Wicker Man (a movie that also featured a stranger infiltrating a cult-like event, with participants in eerie masks and costumes, with tragic consequences). The final irony of this misunderstood film, though, comes from Nicole Kidman's last line in the movie. The final line in the final Kubrick film is nearly as memorable as the film itself, and darkly funny to boot. Give this movie a few years, and it will be re-evaluated and designated a masterpiece, like many of Kubrick's films from 2001 to The Shining.