The perverts will revolt but the intellectuals will rejoice!

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 1999)

Kubrick has been making films since the 50's. He has made two in my lifetime: Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). I was only seven when Full Metal Jacket came out and far too young, so it was a huge thrill for me to sit in that dark theatre and watch Kubrick's name appear on the screen.
There was far less sex in the movie than I had predicted. Instead, Kubrick stuck to his reputation of psychological exploration. Bill Harford, played by Tom Cruise, is the focus of this exploration. The catalyst is a bold confession by his wife, Alice Harford, about her brief obsession with a sailor. This launches Cruise into a self-destructive path as he approaches his marriage with unbridled nihilism.
Many events follow, the most bizarre being Bill's confrontation with masked nymphomaniacs. This is really the final sexual event and so brings what I believe to be the conclusion about sex itself. It does not portray animal sex as funny or beautiful, but instead casts it in the light of a Masonic or Satanic type of ritual.
While watching the movie, I could not help but think of Edgar Allen Poe's villain in The Tell-Tale Heart. Bill Harford is not confused or sex-crazed and he is certainly not stupid. Bill is an intellectual and approaches all of his situations with that type of arrogance that an intellectual has. Yet, when he sees that mask on his pillow, that's the defining moment, the thundering beat of a heart under the floorboards. It is then when a previously confident intellectual crumbles under the realization of his own weakness and sexual obsession. All that time, Bill Harford had walked through his own life with eyes wide shut.
I loved this movie. And that's all I can say. Those who were waiting for some shocking sexual act in the movie will be severely disappointed. I don't know if this is his best, but if you are a fan of Kubrick films, you will not be disappointed.