confusion, illusion and unfaitfulness

Rating: 9/10 (7 August 2001)

This necessarilly slow movie has as main theme the meaning attached to marriage faithfulness. The illusion of a perfect marriage gets perforated by a confession of the woman (kidman); the man (cruise) runs on and seeks a nightly adventure to get square. The tought of an equilibrium is crucial in the film. The sexual orgies in the secret nightly masked ball (the scary, doom-music), make his adventures seem like a dream, sexuality and fear is interwoven. Basically, the unfaithfulness of kidman either wasn't more than a fantasy. The dream - reality theme also dominates the movie. The slowness of the movie makes it all seem so unreal, and fantasy-like, just as the music, often not more than one piano-sound. The end is a view of finding each other in a larger interpretation of marriage and a gives a hopeful perspective of relations. The suddenly unpredictability and confusion of the human mind is to be accepted, and even -to be shared- and can make a relation stronger and 'more real'.