Even when he is at his most distant, Kubrick has never left us so much outside the world of his characters that we really don't care what happens to them or why. This is true here despite the endless attraction of watching the images unfold into a journey through their minds. In time, I'm sure, it will seem all the more significant, either because it will have been written about or because Kubrick's gift of prophecy ran deeper than was evident at first sight. Maybe this is the defining film of the millennium, or at least of the millennial angst we are feeling in the late 1990s. But we should never be afraid to criticise any work of art, and Eyes Wide Shut is ultimately more a work of great craftsmanship than great vision.
True art needs both.
Harvey O'Brien M.A. copyright 1999.