adding some comments

Rating: 7/10 (14 May 2003)

**please forgive my horrible English** - thanks
I've read a lot of the reviews here about "Eyes wide shut", and it made me feel like adding some comments to my own review.
1/ The fact that I found EWS boring doesn't mean I think it's a bad movie. Actually I think that anyone who states that EWS is a bad movie knows nothing about filmmaking, and should stick with "Independance day", "XXX", or other stupidities. Gee, there's even this guy who writes " it looks like a bad blow up from a 16mm print. The sets are pitiful, the lighting is horrid.."... I can't believe it. How people may get pretentious, when they obviously know nothing about what they're talking about. Brilliant cinematography has always been one of Kubrick's strengths, and it still is in EWS. If you think differently, you need an ophthalmologist.
2/Even considering the subtext and the metaphoric work of Kubrick, I still can't enjoy the movie despite its many strong features. I'm still convinced that casting Cruise was a mistake. The whole movie, and the whole story (would it be "real" or "fantasmatic") is experienced from Harford's point of view. He is immature and self-confident, and he faces events and characters that break his small world, and make him realize how weak he is, eventually leading him to total submission to his wife. He regresses to childhood by missing every opportunity offered to him to be an adult. But in the beginning of the film, we see rightaway that Dr. Harford is actually an adolescent. The character impersonated by Cruise is obviously immature, right from the start. This ruins the whole movie for me, as I'm surprised by none of Harford's reactions to the events. This shallow character is too obvious, too caricatured, so the collision between his miserable personality and the weird oniric threatening world (real or not) he faces doesn't work for me. All I saw is... Tom cruise in a Kubrick movie!
3/ I'm quite shocked by highly snobbish comments I've read from self-infatuated people claiming that disliking EWS only shows one's inability to understand it. This statement is very suspect, who are those guys to claim they actually understood the movie, after all? They have their own idea (like I do) of what EWS means, doesn't mean it was Kubrick's purpose. Like with recent David Lynch movies, anyone saying that the purpose of EWS is "obvious" to "intelligent" people, and confusing only to "unintelligent" people, has his eyes wide shut like Dr. Harford. Their world is full of certitudes. Beware of the awakening...
I do agree with the idea that many didn't like EWS simply because they can't cope with artistic, challenging movies. But it's not my case (challenging directors as Lynch, Cronenberg, Tarkowski, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Jodorowski and the like - and Kubrick, of course- have a very good place in my collection), though after having played EWS 11 times, I'm still NOT convinced. I'd love to.
To all of you who haven't seen this movie, go and see for yourself. After all, it's our beloved Kubrick's very last movie, and it still has many outstanding qualities to offer. Just don't expect too much.