What if the movie had been completed?

Rating: 6/10 (21 May 2000)

There's no other movie that has been so generously awarded before its premier! Years of headlines about Kubrick, Cruise and Kidman this and that, sex, body doubles, takes and re-re-re-re-re-retakes,hype after hype and finally, Kubrick's death. Which seems like an excuse for leaving the film as it appears. Mediocre. Skeletal. Uncut. Most and foremost: uncut. During the first half an hour I got irritated about the dialogue: - How do ..........you........think about.........that? - ..........How do.........I...........think about..........that? Wellll...... how I.....think about that izzzzz......eehhhh....This is really difficult for me to say....but.....
and so on. Kubrick forced his actors act naturally, to act and react, but I don't think all of this slow thinking was meant to appear in the final version. I havent really done any research, but I suppose one third or fourth of the movie could easily have been left out. Of course, the movie would have felt unfinished then, and not the Last Will and Testament of the God.
The erotic aspect is OK, but not erotic. Asses and tits come and go, but are more like sculptures. White gypsum copies of the original marble artwork of the antiques. No insight, really. We know that Kubrick didn't actually fool around, meet people, or stay tuned with the world. It shows.
The approach is very theatre-like. I actually lost my concentration thinking about how much of the dialogue is Schnitzler and how much isn't. Especially the slimy and sleazy Hungarian, who would very much have wanted to f**k Nicole Kidman, acted nothing like a turn-of-the-millennium-c**t-licking playboy would. Maybe Kubrick thought nothing has changed since the times of the original story.
Very sorry. I think Stanley Kubrick was one of the greatest. Eyes Wide Shut is beautifully shot (in Lightbulb Yellow and Nuit Americaine Blue), has a driving screenplay and a genuine no-hurry Kubrick feel, but I still think it's nowhere close to what it would have been, if the director could have worked on it for another five years.