Eyes Wide Shut

Rating: 4/10 (14 July 2005)

This was director Stanley Kubrick's last film before his death, and unfortunately, it is not one of his best. Basically, Tom Cruise plays Dr. Bill Harford and Nicole Kidman plays his wife, Alice. They are a troubled couple that do not have a lot of passion in themselves. One night Alice tells Bill she is going to bed, and he takes this opportunity to have a night to himself. In this night, he almost has sex with a prostitute, and then he buys a mask, black cloak with hood and tuxedo to go to a large house of (invited) men and women (wearing masks) shagging all over. Those are pretty much the highlights for this almost confusing and not very exciting film. Also starring Sydney Pollack as Victor Ziegler, Marie Richardson as Marion Nathanson, Rade Serbedzija as Milich, Todd Field as Nick Nightingale, Vinessa Shaw as Domino, GoldenEye's Alan Cumming as Desk clerk and Leelee Sobieski as Milich's daughter. The two biggest problems I have are there is not a lot of explanation for certain things, and every moment was too slow, dragging the film on. The critics say it is a must see, but I'll let other people decide that, I personally wouldn't recommend it as a Kubrick masterpiece. It was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Original Score for Jocelyn Pook, and it won the Venice Film Festival Filmcritica "Bastone Bianco" Award for Kubrick. Nicole Kidman was number 21, and Tom Cruise number 32 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, Cruise was number 25 on The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols, and he was number 81 on The 100 Greatest Pop Culture Icons. Okay!