An excellent drunken date after-party

Rating: 5/10 (7 October 2007)

Eyes Wide Shut is a bad movie, but not in the sense that you couldn't enjoy it in a kind of mystery science theater setting. I asked my buddy what on Earth had possessed him to buy this DVD, and he responded that his (now ex-)girlfriend had seen it in the store and that she had been curious to watch it. I responded that "this DOES seem like a Walter and Fiona (names changed to protect the innocent) movie," especially considering that girl was a mental headcase. (In fact, according to Walter, the conversation that punctuated a wildly funny scene of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman toking it up and fondling each other rather resembled his conversations with Fiona.)
And that's just the thing about this type of film: if anyone actually thought this was amazing, he would probably not be the kind of person you would want to meet. But the sort of people who THINK they should like this belong to the bored, bland, postmodern American bourgeoisie so easily duped into believing that to watch decadent pictures set against beautiful Italianate and beaux-arts architecture and sprinkled with profanity will bring enlightenment and sophistication. There are few things more hilarious or entertaining than to watch American yuppies ape this shallow conception of European culture.
To be sure, Eyes Wide Shut is stunningly filmed, though it was difficult for me to place the location at first. I was not surprised to learn subsequently that Stanley Kubrick filmed this on sets rather than the actual streets of New York. The outdoor shots clearly lack the requisite atmosphere--though perhaps that was done intentionally so as to convey the "dreamy" sensibility so dwelt upon by fawning reviewers.
Genuine or not, however, great cinematography cannot save this inordinately poorly written story. We are expected to believe that Cruise is so seriously traumatized by the discovery that his wife had fantasized about sleeping with another man (and had been relieved when he had left and removed the temptation) that he must go on a quest to understand the dark side of human sexuality. To the filmmakers' credit, they resist the temptation to make him give in to this darkness, which would have been all too easy in the era of moral nihilism. Still, this is a shaky premise at best, implying that for a physician, Cruise's character is terribly naïve about fleshly impulses.
A similarly shoddy point deals with the antics of Kidman, who only dreams about what her husband witnesses. Awakened from her fit of laughter, she laments her horrifying nightmare where "people were ****ing! And I was ****ing them! And I was making FUN of you!" But this is so stupid as to actually be quite enjoyable: I would like to know, was she crying because she was traumatized by the thought of betraying her husband, or because she awoke from a rather pleasant dream to see her beloved at her side? Cruise and Kidman are not known for their acting abilities, but when they get the chance to ham it up at these campy moments, which are littered throughout the script, they shine, and brighten the movie just that much more. The last line was an absolute hoot, and ironically, the only logical ending to this preposterous mess.
One more aspect ought to be dealt with: the nudity. Even with the U.S. edits to pass for an "R" rating, in my mind this still qualifies, quite easily, for NC-17. The gratuitousness of it all further dilutes and overwhelms what should have been Cruise's remarkable resistance to the subsuming forces of sexual deviance. Granting that it is difficult to depict a stylish, ritualized orgy, so central to this plot, without removing the actors' clothing, one has to question whether, if such drastic measures are necessary, there is really anything meaningful to say with this story (there is not). And the fact that this was one long in-your-face flesh fest from the opening act proves that it was meant to provoke and to "be bad," which is no longer that shocking by today's lowered standards. Neither is the whole premise of an exclusive, high-society sex cult really that outlandish--most conspiracy theories are false, of course, but I've heard enough sordid tales of the American élite to know that some must be true. A well-educated urbanite like Cruise shouldn't be so shocked.
Apparently this is based on a late-nineteenth century Austrian novella, which I have not read. I'm not sure how it was in its own context--perhaps it was nothing more than provocation or perversion--but this version is irredeemably marred by sloppy writing and wanton pretension to seriousness. In response to the reviewer(s) who said, "Be prepared to think!" I say, don't waste too many brain cells. The sheer volume of profanity, campiness and nudity precludes any possibility that a real human being could take this seriously, but watching Kubrick trip over himself to attain that end will produce no small amount of laughter. So just enjoy the guilty ride.