It's (sort of) different for girls.

Rating: Null/10 (9 March 2003)

ATTENTION: All women shall wear a Versace gown and sling-back pumps when using the toilet.
Ok Let's move on.
While watching Eyes Wide Shut, I found myself repeatedly asking what I would have thought of this film had it not been Mr. Kubrick's work, and I think I might have liked it more than I did. Would he have made this film if he had known that it would be his last? With the master's name not in the credits, Eyes Wide Shut might have been an interesting art house effort, perhaps by a young director with a definite eye, and a future. Quite possibly, Nicole and Tom would still have been in the cast, perhaps working for scale and some points, for the fun of being in such a production, as both actors possess discernible integrity. But Eyes Wide Shut was a Kubrick, and I came away with a clear sense that this great artist of the cinema had possibly been running on fumes while directing it. Despite the seductive beauty of many of its set pieces, the film overall seemed to be walking under water. But Kubrick out of breath is still Kubrick and he still managed to give us an often fascinating piece of work, one that dripped the dark juices of life that he may have sensed were, for him, finally drying up.
Although the aforementioned integrity is a good thing in any artist, that quality alone may not always be enough. An actor must still be right for the role and when Tom Cruise is wrong, no one is wrong quite like him. But this seldom, if ever, has anything to do with his skill as an actor. Like Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, or Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise is a Movie Star and movie stars have indelible personalities that percolate up through every role. In Mr. Cruise's case, it's the shrewd, early post-adolescent we first encountered in Risky Business. Regardless of how sophisticated his subsequent characters have been, this personality has always been there and is something that Mr. Cruise will simply have to outgrow. As he seems to be aging gracefully, it may take a while.
While brilliant in Born on the Fourth of July, Rain Man, and Jerry McGuire, where his core adolescence was perfect, in Eyes Wide Shut, he's a college boy playing doctor in a tent-like white coat. In the first Mission Impossible, when Cruise's whizbang Ethan Hunt told Ving Rhames' Luther that `We're GOING to do it', referring to the planned burglary at CIA Langley, he simply came off like a frat boy planning to heist the Phi Delt bell. In that film, as in Eyes Wide Shut, Cruise never really acted badly. He was just wrong for the roles. In Eyes, during the orgy scene, when the spectacular courtesan under black feathers asks Dr. Bill (Cruise) what he thinks he is doing, the veracity of the question resonates on several levels. Nicole Kidman, a humanoid blend of fox and white-tailed deer, was almost equally unconvincing as his wife. I tried, but could not buy into this glittering and now-sundered couple. Lesser-known actors of the same age would have brought more authenticity, but both roles really called out for more mature actors with more cerebral styles. The Cruise-Kidman duet were never able to gain sufficient distance from their real selves because their character-set, a young fairy-tale couple, was too much like we perceive them in real life. The real Tom Cruise would never be seen ricocheting off a homophobic boy on a late-night city sidewalk, yet there he was, despite the Dr. Bill disguise. Given this, no matter how hard the pair tried, or over-acted, I could never escape the feeling that both were often faxing it in. Thomas Gibson, the briefly-visible, young college professor, would actually have made a more believable Dr. Bill. Eyes Wide Shut is a dark film and the sparkly Mr. And Mrs. Cruise simply shed too much of the wrong sort of light on it.
But not all of this film's casting choices were mistakes. The supporting cast took very good care of business, some of whom seemed to be poking their heads into the film from a parallel universe, even if given just a few lines, like Carmela Marner's smart waitress. Sidney Pollack was a great save when Harvey Keitel, due to scheduling conflicts, was unable to finish out as Victor Ziegler. Todd Field's Nick Nightingale worked beautifully. But the real coup d'etat was Vinessa Shaw's hooker, and walking billboard for the legalization of prostitution, Domino, who stepped out of the film's urbane murk and owned everything. Her scene is my absolute favorite. You don't want to merely bang a lady of such sweet and intelligent self-possession. You want to get her off the street, buy her a drink, and just watch her talk. She has everyone's number. Resistance is futile.
We will probably never know what Kubrick (David Lean's evil twin) really wanted to accomplish with Eyes Wide Shut (the title was probably borrowed from dialog in the superlative BBC production of John LeCarre's Smiley's People: Connie Sachs to Smiley during their great scene; Kubrick certainly would have seen it); We do know that it was messed with (Gee, isn't that surprising). Director's Cut, please, asap. I'm just sorry he's gone. We won't get to see him bounce back and pull off something brilliant ever again. What must it have been like to be him and be so burdened by the relentless expectations of so many after the monumental 2001: A Space Odyssey? I think he handled it. If you doubt him, or me, just watch his The Shining then follow it up with the not-bad TV version. There you will have the explicit and implicit difference between art and artifice.