Darkness Is Even Darker in the Light

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 2000)

SPOILER ALERT Stanley Kubrick's swan song is a well-made, hypnotic, and overall outstanding film which combines elements from all of the late director's earlier films. Doctor Tom Cruise learns one night that his wife Nicole Kidman has thought about changing the course of both their lives for a one-night stand with a naval officer who she saw just once and did not even converse with. They have a marijuana-induced argument which leads to emotional sparks for Cruise. Now he is out to seek revenge on his wife because of her thoughts. What follows is a strange journey into the deepest, darkest places of New York City and the human psyche, in general. Cruise learns that the daughter of one of his late patients has an infatuation for him, he almost becomes the victim of a hate crime as young college guys think that he is a homosexual, he is propositioned by a beautiful hooker, and he comes into contact with an old college buddy. The old friend is mysterious and Cruise becomes intrigued after he learns that the friend, now a piano player, has a gig at an unknown location. Cruise gets the information needed to attend the "get-together" and makes the necessary arrangements. He runs into another strange situation when he goes to rent a costume for the occasion. When he finally reaches his destination, he realizes that what he thought he wanted is not what he wants at all. The wild and crazy thrill-ride of the night finally comes to a close, but the next day proves to be even darker and more disturbing. Cruise basically retraces the steps that he took the night before (not necessarily in the same order) and his "eyes open wide" to see everything that had happened the night before. In the end, Cruise realizes that dark elements are even darker in the daylight than in the black of night. He comes clean to Kidman and they both realize that sex, excitement, and thrills are fine in the fantasy world, but could be the poorest of elements in real life (given the right, or wrong, situation). Kubrick's direction is amazing to say the least. This film is not the ramblings of some old, washed-up film-maker. Kubrick is always sure of where he wants to go and his screenplay keeps up the suspense, interest, and tenseness of the audience. I can see why this film took so long to shoot. The cinematography alone is a sight to behold. Dark streets illuminated by Christmas lights and vivid colors shining through black backgrounds are commonplace throughout here. The editing and set directions are also superb. Tom Cruise is very strong as well. He dominates the film the final two hours or so. Nicole Kidman starts strong, but Cruise becomes the focus. All the supporters are strong as well. Sydney Pollack and Vanessa Shaw shine the most. If there was ever a film that was destroyed because of too much hype, it is this one. All the talk of the long shoot, the excessive sexual situations, and the death of Kubrick made this film become a mainstream project. The result was an excellent opening weekend, but a failure overall at the box office due to bad word-of-mouth. The average movie-goer will not get anything out of this film. This is a deep, thought-provoking film that is somewhat an art-house flick (even though I have never been crazy about that term). The publicity about the sexual situations turned many away and brought in many who did not care about anything except seeing a bunch of naked women. That is a real shame. All this caused the film to be dismissed by the general public and by the Academy as well. Overall "Eyes Wide Shut" is an excellent film that ranks real high on Kubrick's list of credits (I would still have to put "Dr. Strangelove", "2001: A Space Odyssey", and "A Clockwork Orange" ahead of this film). With all this said, "Eyes Wide Shut" was probably the best film of 1999 and is one of the best films of the decade. 4.5 out of 5 stars.