Ambitious, enthralling, disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 1999)

Eyes Wide Shut is an lengthy exploration of the marriage of two affluent New Yorkers. Alice and Bill have a beautiful apartment, a lovely 7 year old daughter, a Range Rover, pots of money, they are portrayed by Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise...yet something is lacking. Just as there are several things lacking in this meticulously constructed movie.
She confesses to a powerful infatuation with a naval officer (but they do not have sex). She dances in a very flirtatious manner with a older, handsome Hungarian at a lavish party in a millionaire friend's home (but they do not have sex).
At the same party Bill goes off arm-in-arm with two models (but they do not have sex). He embarks on a weird journey around New York. The daughter of a just-deceased patient kisses him in the same room where her dead pa is lying in bed (but they do not have sex). He goes to a hooker's decrepit apartment and pays her $150 (but they do not have sex). At considerable expense and trouble, Bill then goes to an very exclusive orgy at a magnificent out-of-town mansion (where everyone but he has sex). If this is not proof that doctors are grossly overpaid, I do not know what is.
As George Bernard Shaw said about the institution of marriage, Bill's horribly expensive trip combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity. Yet he is either too scared or too faithful to his wife (who is far more gorgeous than any of his potential illicit sexual partners) to take advantage of any of the chances laid before him. He constantly flies close the flame, but does not quite get burnt.
The film is obviously ambitious in so many ways: its meticulous recreation of New York within an English studio, the lavish sets, the impeccable performances from the entire cast, its superlative craftmanship. I particularly appreciated the SOUND...the ticking of the clock in the dead patient's bedroom, the thump of the wooden staff on the floor during the quasi-religious ritual before the orgy. Stanley Kubrick elicits the most intense and moving performance I have ever seen from Tom Cruise. Admittedly, this is like talking about the hottest day ever in Finland, but praise where praise is due.
The story becomes progressively more enthralling, if you can tolerate its 2.5+ hours of plot development. The scenes at the "masked ball" ritual and orgy reek with menace, before and after Bill's exposure before the wealthy degenerates -especially when they threaten him and his family. Their diabolical threats are seemingly underlined in the utterly chilling scene where Bill enters his bedroom after the ball....
Yet the film as a whole is oddly disappointing. It contains so many unresolved elements, such as the costume shop owner and his "daughter"'s apparently promiscuous conduct. Is she really his daughter? Why does her "father" act as the outraged father when he finds her with two men during the night, yet as an ingratiating pimp the next morning? Does the luckless pianist Nick survive the degenerates' wrath after telling Bill about the time and venue of the orgy? Is Bill's evil millionaire friend (well played by Sidney Pollock) telling the truth about Nick and the deceased party girl? Why does Bill react in such a bizarre manner to his adored wife's honest confessions of sexual fantasies - NOT physical infidelities? The atheist Kubrick seems to be adopting the Biblical principle that to look at a woman (or man) lustfully is the same as actual fornication.
Possibly, as one reviewer suggested, Alice is merely inflaming the rather dull Bill's sexual imagination, rather than his jealousy. In which case, why not indulge his libido with his beautiful, loving, faithful and lawfully wedded spouse? For a guy bright enough to be a successful doctor, he is too dumb to recognise a good thing under his own nose.
If these loose ends were present in a film by any other director, they would be criticised as sloppiness. As it is the late great Kubrick, we are supposedly expected to regard them as profound or enigmatic. It is all the more disappointing in view of the extraordinary length of the project's creation...the longest film shoot in history, talk of 100 takes for every scene. If a fraction of that time and effort had gone into a more coherent screenplay, I am sure the end result would have been more satisfactory.
It is worthwhile correcting some of the crazier rumours which circulated before the film's release. Bill and Alice are respectively an ordinary doctor and an ex-art gallery manager - NOT psychiatrists/sexologists. Tom Cruise does NOT wear a blue dress...pity, it might have enlivened the stodgier early half of the movie.
After seeing most of Kubrick's films, I remember them as an indispensable part of my film education and the best times I have spent in cinemas. I keenly anticipated Eyes Wide Shut. I loved parts of it, but feel sad that he did not leave a better farewell letter.