A rewarding maze of discoveries for the viewer.

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 1999)

The viewer is taken on a time compressed journey that is fueled by a need for spontaneity that seems to come from the protagonist's emotional trauma of hearing that his wife has positively considered the idea of being unfaithful. This young couple lives a well planned life that sacrifices impulse behavior for success. When the foundation of their marriage is rocked by the wife's admission of desired infidelity that she has kept secret, our young doctor is thrown into a tailspin that necessitates retaliation and impulse behavior of his own.
The journey is pure Kubrick, with each scene a vignette that is thematically connected and part of the superstructure of a story that itself is like a garden in Kubrick's country of choice.
Tom Cruise's face has never been used as expressively as it is used in this piece. Nicole Kidmann's body has never been used to such effect as it is used here. The intent of the director was clearly to explore what each of these people held in their finest professional attributes and mine them for our viewing delight