1999: A Sex Odyssey

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 1999)

As long as you don't buy into the hype that surrounds pictures like EYES WIDE SHUT, you can watch without prejudice and assess what you are seeing more precisely. Let me say that Stanley Kubrick's final film is a psychological and visual masterpiece. The ridiculous media hype generated by the famed director's meticulous filmmaking methods and the film's allegedly "pornographic" style with stars such as Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is flat out sad. It is an extremely GOOD film with some truly GREAT moments. Kubrick's swan song is his best work since A CLOCKWORK ORANGE in 1971.
Short-attention span viewers beware: Stay Away! Go see ARLINGTON ROAD if you want generic, meaningless entertainment. Smart, discerning moviegoers with an eye for art and unique cinema must, and probably will, see EYES WIDE SHUT. This is an engaging and excrutiatingly candid look at sexual obsession and jealousy within a man's mind and heart. Sex is what human beings, specifically males, think of most. What an exploration into a few days in the life of a jealous husband who falls into some strange and disturbing sexual situations.
Is the film soft-core porn? Absolutely not. The sex scenes are very mild in accordance to what has been reported through both rumors and initial reviews. Is the film about sex and only sex? In a way, yes. Sex involves passion and love, jealousy, and danger. These 4 elements are tied together with such disturbing subtlety, quite frankly I was spellbound. Sex also involves temptation and aftermath, which is also pertinent to the rather linear story. Kubrick and company do not go over the top. They merely present to us a dangerous nightmare maybe not entirely unlike the Kidman character's sexual dream and revelation.
EYES WIDE SHUT is long, but seems bitterly quick and I couldn't help but shake my head in amazement at the people who walked out on such a superlative piece of work. This is not a commercial Cruise-Kidman film (thankfully). Marketing has made it appear to be one. It is a labor of love that will always be looked at through a microscope.
The performances are good and I think Kidman may be underused here. There are some brief moments when the Cruise character reminds you of "Mitch McDeere" of THE FIRM and will figure it all out, but Kubrick fans will know better. The sinister two-note piano key played throughout the movie goes so well within the foreign New York atmosphere (it was all shot in England) and so many of the great director's trademarks emerge (a bathroom scene, steadicam shots, extraordinary set decoration, gloomy lighting). The title is a nifty way of naming a film the TV networks would call "The Misadventures of Dr. Bill". They truly are misadventures, but a motive is there.
Do yourself a favor and see Stanley Kubrick's farewell stamp to his legendary career. It is by all means a thriller, with dark thoughts, sexual double-crossing, kinky parties, and all that Kubrickian stuff that never fails to leave you in awe.
RATING: ****