A beautiful, understated, gem of a film

Rating: 10/10 (18 September 2016)

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in "Eyes Wide Shut". Stanley Kubrick takes the stars out of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise and makes them any ordinary, self-searching people. Kidman of "Eyes Wide Shut" was certainly not the Satine of "Moulin Rouge" or any star character of any of her other films. Tom Cruise was not the Tom Cruise we are so used to seeing: Maverick, Ethan Hunt and all. Both Cruise and Kidman were both disrobed and demystified in "Eyes Wide Shut" that I felt sorry for them. They are vulnerable, they cry, and they are absolutely not the stars or heroes we are used to seeing.
As a film, "Eyes Wide Shut" works excellently. Though it has been billed as an erotic thriller, it is also a study into human relationships, especially between married couples. There is a line in the film: "Don't you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both parties?" This line was spoken in a flirtatious way at a party, but this line seems to be the message the entire film seems to be built upon. In a married couple, who shows the most honesty, the husband or the wife? Alice and Dr. Bill Harford (played by Kidman and Cruise) are a well-to-do New York City couple. Bill is a general practitioner, while Alice used to be a manager at an art gallery who is now a housewife looking after Helena, their only daughter, aged 7. In a cannabis-fuelled haze, Alice reveals that she had wanted to be unfaithful to Bill once, though she hadn't. Bill is unable to stand this revelation, though he doesn't show it, and roams the streets of New York City that night watching apparently committed people turning to adultery, morals (depending upon how one defines "morals") being disregarded, and, the highlight of his introspective adventure, gatecrashes a secret party where orgies are being held and that nearly endangers his life.
After a lot of revelations and catharsis, the film ends well. But it leaves behind a number of questions, the biggest one being: Who between a husband and a wife is the most honest? We see Alice being honest to her husband, but Bill - because of several issues, including the doctor-patient relationship of secrecy - cannot be that honest with his wife even if he wished to. So was it right for Bill to get so upset about something that Alice said she had wanted to do but she, ultimately, didn't? Was it right for Alice to tell her husband something that she didn't do? Is it right for couples to discuss their fantasies involving other men and women? Or was that joint Alice and Bill rolled that was to be blamed? With a lot of self-searching questions, "Eyes Wide Shut" is an amazing and beautifully understated thriller.
Also, check out the background score. There are a lot of classical music pieces. But what really caught my attention were the menacing piano solos that pop up all of a sudden at critical points. Also, piano - or, rather, a pianist - plays an important role in the plot. Hats off to Stanley Kubrick for giving us this gem of a film called "Eyes Wide Shut" just before he departed!