Hate to say it, but... Riveting

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2003)

The smallest of spoilers. Despite its lumbering and sometimes excruciating pace, this movie kept my eyes locked on the screen. It is not that the film is pleasant to watch; on the contrary, many times it makes its viewing extremely difficult. Yet it is so rich in detail and realism that it has a sort of twisted charm to it. Not that the plot is realistic, because few would say that Bill Harford had a typical night. Instead, it is the human emotion which is real, and in many ways it is the sheer brilliance of the acting that makes this bizarre situation into a hauntingly familiar one. Tom Cruise is perfect for the role, and some have argued this is not because of his talent, but the fact that he is not a good actor. Kubrick seemed to play on this, and molded the character of Harford into one who is at once acting and not acting, real and fake. This is made possible by the strange relationship between actor and character in this case--this is definitely not Tom Cruise's typical role.
Kidman, on the other hand, is absolutely superb. Having read that Kubrick had forced her to film some scenes hundreds of times until she was crying after each shoot, I expected some sincere acting. She well exceeded my expectations, however, with such strikingly poignant acting that I was almost immediately drawn into the lives of this semi-functional couple. Without her, how could Harford have the drive to do what he does in the film? She is excellent, as are all of the supporting actors and even those in even one scene (the desk-clerk, Domino, Mandy, etc).
The cinematography is also top-notch. If my eyes did not deceive me, there were some strange tricks in this film. I saw an eye move across Harford's back as he enters his home in one scene (replayed it like 5 times to confirm it). Things like that combined with the already outstanding camerawork add another layer of macabre deception which the film embraces. Near the beginning, when Kidman is describing what happened at Cape Cod, there is another artful use of the camera as it follows her hysterics, nodding downwards to watch as she collapses with laughter. Given that this was an unfinished movie by Kubrick, the high quality of the cinematography overall is a tribute to his genius.
The score was simple and repetitive--and yet so enormously effective. Those piano notes, reaching their apex when Harford returns home near the conclusion of the film, are really only a few dissonant notes, but they mix with the visual imagery and the atmosphere of the film to become a cacophany in the mind of the viewer. There are numerous musical references in the film as well. The score fits perfectly with the ambiance of the film.
The suspense of this film was maintained at a high level throughout, reminiscent somewhat of Blue Velvet with its inexplicable darkness, which is one of the most suspenseful films I have ever seen. Certainly there is a Lynchian element in the darkness of the film and the way the film's reality changes drastically during the conversation with Ziggler. And yet, while discordant realities may be Lynch's specialty, Kubrick focuses on the depraved reality, all the locations of his films having their own psychology which can essentially go insane the way his protagonists are wont to do. We are given reality filtered through the protagonist's increasingly unstable psychology, and this film is an extraordinary example of it.
This film is not for everyone. It is long, it is dark, it does not have a typical easily-understood plot. It is character-driven, and at that, features a character whose reality many viewers would not be comfortable to reside in for three hours. It is not easily understood. It is not all that it seems, but is more like a message from Kubrick whose ideas I can really only scratch. If you're intrigued, you will probably enjoy this film. If you're disgusted, you will probably hate it. I doubt there's many who fall in the middle. [9/10]