A Brilliant Work.

Rating: 9/10 (25 July 1999)

What a fascinating -- and challenging -- film! As with the best of his works, Kubrick combines a thought-provoking plot with a series of unsurpassed visual and musical touches, perfectly accompanying and, thus, augmenting the basic story. In cases such as this, the end product IS greater than the sum of its parts. Further, the performances here, particularly that of Tom Cruise, are some of the best of Kubrick's entire oeuvre. An acclaimed actor (either Spencer Tracy or Laurence Olivier, I can't remember) once described the art of acting as consisting primarily of *reacting.* As with "Full Metal Jacket," where the audience experiences the film mainly as a series of actions in which the journalist Sgt. Joker participates, and therefore observes, "Eyes Wide Shut" can be seen as an extended dreamlike/nightmarish scenario through which the Cruise character, and, so, the audience, moves. This is an engaging work, one worthy of the characterization "a brilliant final legacy."