Thought-provoking, with some flaws

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 1999)

This was truly a great film on the whole, however, some ambivalence in the direction made it hesitant and uncertain. Overall, this is a fantastic exploration on our culture's attitude towards sexuality and our fear and attraction to it. One point that I think has been missed is that this is not actually promoting conservative values. In some ways, it mocks them. If this film has a flaw, the major one is the struggle between having a plot, and simply being a personal exploration. I think that some of the latter sequences involving Cruises "investigation" into the orgy(after the fact) were useless, and didn't add anything. Particularly, the second Sidney Pollack(the other mistake of the film- Keitel would have been much better) scene was over-explaining what would have been better as a mystery.
On the whole, it was a beautifully made examination of love and lust.