From Stanley, with love

Rating: 10/10 (4 May 2002)

"Eyes Wide Shut" isn't Stanley Kubrick's greatest film but then Kubrick's genius was such that he set the bar of his own standards so ridiculously high that even his lesser works are fascinating, compelling and essential.
Such is "Eyes Wide Shut". Despite the tremendous handicap of featuring Nicole Kidman (an actor so impossibly bad that the only positive contributions she makes to the film is when she is naked or silent), Kubrick has crafted a beautiful, complex, almost mystical film that works on layers and levels unimagined by most all of the film makers filling today's cinemas.
In short, Kubrick has created a fascinating character study, based on the flawed and dichotomous Bill Harford as he attempts to reconcile modern modes of sexual conduct with his highly traditional modes of moral conduct. Sexual desire and insecurity is portrayed as an underwold, while everyman Cruise has to navigate through it like a modern Ulyesses searching for his Penelope (now there's a modern irony....)
Perhaps mostly importantly, though, Kubrick weaves through "Eyes Wide Shut" a number of touching and occasionally humourous homages to his own work - almost as if sensing his own time was short. The shot of Leelee Sobieki backing away from Cruise is burned in my memory as sheer Kubrick genius. A wonderful, evocative soundtrack, sumptuous shots, inventive lighting and the remote decadence that only Kubrick can conjure all contribute to the feeling that this film is washing over you, inviting you to delve into it and lose yourself deeper into it's mystery and dark recesses.
In short, a film that survives Kidman (how does this woman get work? have people lost Laura Dern or Julianne Moore's phone number?)and in no way diminished the non pariel reputation of Stanley Kubrick, the master film maker and one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.