Hard to keep eyes open.

Rating: 4/10 (29 May 2000)

With the hype last year - magazine covers and all - I expected something more. Much more.
I give the film a generous 4. I thought it failed on several counts: Tom Cruise has never been a favorite of mine. In The Firm, at least, he came closer to character playing a smart-ass attorney, but his self-assured semi-smirk and perfect Hollywood looks don't fit the character of a young doctor. Both the Cruise and Kidman characters were superficial to the extreme, with no more personality than cartoon characters.
The characterizations were bad enough, but the acting didn't help. The two leads in particular seemed acutely self-conscious. Whenever Kidman spoke, she exuded "I'm a sexy actress playing a REALLY hot role - listen to my every profound word!" I could prepare a snack before she finished a sentence. By the time she did, I was so irritated I nearly lost track of what she was saying. And her intoxicated demeanor while dancing at the party with a stranger - who came off as some hack's quick-fix cliché - was simply embarrassing.
As if the pace of the dialogue wasn't slow enough, questions had to be repeated - i.e., "What do you....think?" (pregnant pause) "What.....do... I think?" "Yes, what.... do you.... think?" Over and over and over again. Please, not EVERY word is such a big deal. The result is a pretentiousness that simply overwhelems. Is it really necessary for this film to take nearly 3 hours? Not if the characters sounded like real people instead of robots stuck on repeat. I'm reminded of Kubrick's revolving spaceship in 2001, accompanied inexplicably by a Strauss waltz. I remember wondering - will this scene ever end? Unfortunately, I had the same feeling in this film, many times. That shouldn't happen in any film, let alone one with a subject matter that should - de facto - keep everyone enthralled, and one that is the last film and the crowning achievement of an important director's life.
What a shame. Sexuality - as opposed to sex -- is not often dealt with at all, let alone successfully. I kept hoping for a hook to reality, an honest statement. Instead, the plot degenerated into a convoluted hodgepodge which, while titillating (no pun intended), was never sufficiently explained or resolved.
I would have rated it lower than a 4, but for its ground breaking attempt as a serious treatment of sexuality. For a main stream film, it was bold. But again, self-consciously. For me, nothing rang true. As for nudity - frontal nudity, yes. Breasts, plenty of 'em. Sex, er, maybe. But men's privates are still apparently just that - private. And sex - weird and not at all erotic, and only filmed from strategic angles. There is still that familiar and conspicuous holding back, not just of nudity, but of the treatment of sexuality itself. Come on, we're supposed to be grown up. And this is supposed to be a film about a grown-up subject. Unfortunately, it came off more like an adolescent's wet dream.