Eyes Wide Shut

Plot synopsis:
Bill and Alice Harford (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman), a well-to-do Manhattan couple, have been married for nine years. Bill is a doctor with his own private practice and Alice is a full-time mother, though she has managed an art gallery in the past. They have a seven-year-old daughter named Helena (Madison Eginton), whom they leave with a babysitter for the evening while they attend a Christmas party thrown by wealthy attorney Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) and his wife Illona (Leslie Lowe). While at the party, Bill runs into an old friend, Nick Nightingale (Todd Field). Nick dropped out of medical school to become a pianist. Before returning to his place among the band, he invites Bill to come see him at another gig while he's in town. While Alice drunkenly fends off the advances of an unctuous middle-aged Hungarian businessman named Sandor Szavost (Sky du Mont), Bill flirts with two models. Alice dances with Sandor but finally gives him the slip when he invites her upstairs, citing the fact that she is married. Just as the models offer to show Bill "where the rainbow ends," he is discreetly summoned upstairs for an apparent emergency.Ziegler had been partying upstairs with an escort, Mandy (Julienne Davis). When she shot up a mixture of heroin and cocaine, she passed out, scaring Ziegler. Bill rouses the naked woman back to consciousness; determining that she'll safely recover, he chides her to get some help for her addiction. Ziegler makes Bill promise not to mention the incident to anyone.The next night, Alice rolls a joint and she and Bill get stoned. She asks Bill what he was doing with the two models the previous night. He denies hitting on them and asks Alice about the man he saw dancing with her. She says he wanted to have sex with her, which Bill jokes is understandable. Alice turns Bill's comment around and argues that Bill must have wanted to have sex with the models. He assures her that he would not break his marriage vows by cheating on her, but this only further inflames Alice, who infers that the only reason Bill didn't have a fling with the models is out of some sense of marital duty. When Bill smugly claims that women require love before they can have sex and that he has never been concerned she would cheat on him, Alice laughs mockingly. She reminds Bill of a family vacation they spent one summer at a resort in Cape Cod, and asks him if he remembers a certain naval officer. Bill draws a blank. Alice explains to Bill that she wanted this man so badly that she couldn't stop fantasizing about him even while she made love to Bill and attended to Alice. She states flatly that she considered throwing away her life as a wife and mother just to have sex with the handsome stranger. Bill appears stunned and deeply troubled by Alice's confession that when she learned that the naval officer had left the resort, she felt sorry that he was gone, but also "relieved" that fate had prevented her from sleeping with the man, which she most certainly would have done if he had stayed. Their discussion comes to an abrupt end when the telephone rings and Bill is called away to the home of one of his patients, but thoughts of Alice being ravished by the naval officer continue to haunt him.Bill arrives at the lavish apartment of his patient Lou Nathanson, who has just passed away after an illness. He offers his condolences to Nathanson's grief-stricken daughter, Marion (Marie Richardson). In the middle of discussing her engagement and future plans, Marion suddenly confesses to Bill that she is deeply in love with him and needs to be near him, even if she will never get to see him. Bill politely declines her advance, telling her that she is distraught and confused by her father's death. Marion's fiancé Carl (Thomas Gibson) arrives and Bill takes the opportunity to make an exit.Walking through the streets, Bill sees a hooker making out with a john and continues to be plagued by images of his wife with the naval officer. Minutes later, a group of drunken frat boys shove Bill down on the sidewalk, baiting him with homophobic taunts.As Bill continues wandering downtown, a prostitute named Domino (Vinessa Shaw) propositions him. He hesitates, but agrees to accompany her to her apartment nearby. Just as they kiss in her bedroom, Alice calls on his cell phone. Bill lies that he is still at Nathanson's apartment but after hanging up, thinks better of his decision to solicit Domino's services. He pays her and leaves without taking things any further.Resuming his walk, he passes the Sonata Club, where his former medical school chum, Nick Nightingale, is playing piano with a group. Bill decides to stop in to listen. After the music number is up, Nick meets with Bill for drinks at a table. He reveals that he is scheduled to play piano at a sex party later that night and he is waiting for the code word. When Nick answers his cel and appears to be discussing admission to the party, Bill hectors him for more details -- he wants to attend. Nick reveals the code word, "Fidelio," and explains that the orgyists wear costumes. Nick says he doesn't know much else because he's always blindfolded when he plays at the parties.Even though it is after 1:00 a.m., Bill walks to a costume shop called "Rainbow Fashions" hoping the owner, a patient of his, will help him with a costume as a favor. However, the store is under new ownership, and the man who answers the door, a middle aged European named Mr. Milich (Rade Serbedzija) tells Bill to come back during business hours. Bill offers Milich a generous amount of money to rent him a costume now. While taking Bill through the showroom, Milich catches his teenage daughter (Leelee Sobieski), clad in only her underwear, cavorting with two similarly half-dressed older Japanese businessmen in a dressing room. As his daughter cowers behind Bill, Milich expresses outrage at their lack of decency. He locks the men in the room and threatens to call the police on them after he has served Bill.On the way to the party in a taxi, Bill continues to obsess about his wife with the naval officer. Using the password supplied by Nick, he gains access to the party, held at a remote mansion in Long Island. As Bill enters the main room, a circle of thirteen masked women at the center of the room remove their cloaks to reveal that they are clad only in thong bikinis and engage in a quasi-religious ritual before an audience of similarly cloaked and masked men and women. Nick, blindfolded, plays the electric organ. The partygoers then retire to watch or participate in a variety of sexual acts in other rooms throughout the mansion. One masked woman comes to Bill, takes him aside and warns him that he does not belong there.Bill walks through the mansion where various orgies are taking place from the living room, to the dining room and the library. After a few minutes, Bill meets another masked woman who accompanies in watching the library room orgy. Just then, the first masked woman catches up with Bill and takes him aside out of the room where she again tells him to leave and insists he is in terrible danger, for the others suspect that he is an outsider. Bill demands answers and urges the woman to leave with him, but she refuses, saying that it could cost her life and maybe his. The masked woman runs when Bill is then interrupted by a masked porter who tells him that the taxi driver who is waiting outside wants to speak with him. However, the porter takes him to the main room where the masked, red-cloaked Master of Ceremonies confronts Bill in front of the anonymous spectators with a question about a second password, which Bill is unable to answer. The Master of Ceremonies asks him to "kindly remove your mask," and once he does, requests that he also remove his clothes. Before Bill is forced to disrobe, the young woman who had tried to warn Bill intervenes and insists that she be punished instead of him. As she is taken away, Bill asks what is going to happen to her. The Master cryptically replies her fate is sealed. Bill is allowed to leave, but he is also warned not to tell anyone about what happened there or he and his family will suffer "dire consequences."Bill returns home at dawn, guilty and confused. He hides the costume in a locked bureau in his office. Alice awakens and tells him of a troubling dream in which he and she wandered naked in a deserted city. She felt frightened and ashamed while he went off to try to find their clothes. After he left, she felt better, finding herself, still naked, in a beautiful garden. The naval officer emerged, stared at her, and the two of them began making love surrounded by many other couples doing the same. She then started having sex with many of those men and laughing at the idea of Bill seeing her with them.The next morning, Bill goes to a restaurant next door to the Sonata cafe in search of Nick Nightingale, where he learns from the waitress where Nick is staying. Bill goes to the hotel to talk to Nick, but the front desk clerk (Alan Cumming) informs Bill that Nick checked out several hours ago. When Bill asks the desk clerk if there was "anything odd" about Nick's departure, the desk clerk tells Bill that Nick returned to the hotel just before dawn, accompanied by two well-dressed and well-spoken but burly men, one of whom went up to the room with Nick while the other paid his hotel bill. When Nick came back downstairs with his luggage, the desk clerk tells Bill that Nick tried to pass him an envelope, but one of the men noticed this and intercepted it. The two men then forcibly escorted Nick into a waiting limousine parked outside the hotel and they left. The desk clerk adds that Nick appeared to be frightened and his face was bruised.A little later that day, Bill goes to return the costume to Rainbow Fashions, but the mask isn't in the bag with the rest of the costume. Milich adds the missing mask to Bill's charge. Milich's daughter and the two businessmen appear again. The men, now attired in expensive suits, exchange a few pleasantries before they leave. Milich's teenage daughter is still in her underwear. Bewildered by the sudden turn of events, Bill reminds Milich that he was going to report the men to the police. The shopkeeper smilingly informs Bill that he and the businessmen have "come to another arrangement." With his daughter by his side, Mr. Milich states he can do other favors for Bill "and it needn't be a costume." His daughter simply stares at Bill enigmatically.More disturbed than ever, Bill returns to the site of the party, where he is handed a note at the front gate... addressed to him. Although the people there saw his face, he had never told anyone at the party his name. The note tells Bill to cease his inquiries about the previous night's events and to consider the note his "second warning."Throughout the rest of the day, Bill cannot get visions of Alice and the naval officer having passionate sex out of his head. After he returns home from work, he thinks about Alice's recounting of the scene while he watches her instruct their daughter in math. After dinner, Bill lies to Alice about having appointments at his office that very night. He goes back to Domino's apartment and when she is not home, he tries to seduce Sally, Domino's roommate (Fay Masterson). Sally seems interested, but the mood is dampened when she feels obliged to break the news to Bill that Domino has learned that she is HIV-positive. Bill then attempts to call Marion, but hangs up when her fiancé answers the phone.Walking down a street, brooding, Bill notices a well-dressed stranger trailing him. Bill ducks into a nearby coffee shop and apparently loses his pursuer. There, Bill reads an article from a discarded newspaper, the New York Post, that a woman named Amanda Curran, a former beauty queen, was found dead of a drug overdose in a hotel room that morning. Using his doctor's credentials, Bill goes to the morgue to view the body. He recognizes Amanda Curran as the same "Mandy" who overdosed at the Zieglers' Christmas party two nights earlier, and suspects that she may also have been the same masked woman who tried to warn him during the orgy. Bill now fears that she died to protect him.As he is leaving the hospital, Bill receives a call on his cell phone from Ziegler, who wants to meet with him. In the spacious living room at Ziegler's house, after a few minutes of casual talk, Ziegler suddenly reveals that knows all about what happened to Bill the previous night because he was at the orgy Bill crashed and pleads with him to give up his investigations. He admits to having had Bill followed because his own position with the mysterious group has been jeopardized by Bill's intrusion, and curses Nick for having told Bill about the event. Ziegler assures Bill that beyond voyeurism and sex, nothing untoward happened at the party. All of the warnings and the trial, Ziegler suggests, were staged to frighten Bill into keeping quiet.Ziegler further tells Bill that the masked and costumed attendees at the orgy party are very wealthy, important, powerful people who want to protect their privacy. They already suspected that Bill didn't belong at the orgy because he came in a taxi and left the rental receipt for the costume in the pocket of his coat; also there was no second password. Bill would like to believe Ziegler, but can't simply overlook the death of Amanda Curran, whom Ziegler identified as the woman at the party as well as the same woman from the orgy who "sacrificed" herself to prevent Bill's punishment. He also wonders about Nick's fate. Ziegler claims that Nick is safely back in Seattle, and that Mandy was simply a prostitute who had a bad drug problem and died from an accidental overdose. Ziegler quotes: "Life goes on, until it doesn't. It always does." Bill clearly struggles to accept everything Ziegler is telling him. Ultimately however, Ziegler is one of Bill's patients and socializes with many of Bill's other wealthy patients... some of whom are surely the same people involved in these strange ceremonies. Ziegler could effectively put an end to Bill's medical practice if he were to decide to cause any further trouble or question Ziegler's answers, not to mention taking other, more sinister measures against Bill of which he has hinted he is capable. Bill has no choice but to acquiesce and try to forget everything he's seen-- or thinks he's seen.Bill returns home. He sees his mask from the orgy lying on his pillow next to a sleeping Alice. He breaks down in tears and wants to tell her everything. The next morning finds them both red-eyed and emotionally drained. Later that day, Bill and Alice take their daughter Christmas shopping at F.A.O. Schwartz. In a private moment, Bill asks Alice what they should do about their problems. She responds that she is grateful that they have both survived their recent real-life and dream-life adventures, and that they're both "awake" now. When Bill seeks reassurance that they'll remain awake "forever," Alice hedges, saying that while she loves him, the word "forever" frightens her.In the meantime, she suggests, they should get home and "fuck" as soon as possible.

Tags: pornographic, mystery, cruelty, murder, neo noir, psychological, cult, atmospheric, psychedelic, suspenseful, storytelling

Review:
Maybe only guys like Kubrick or Cruise will ever really know if they do or not.Many people might disagree with me when I say Eyes Wide Shut is one of the greatest films.
The thing a lot of folks haven't liked about Stanley Kubrick's films is the fact that he always seemed to think the audience needed some points driven home a little harder than others.
He could have put out a six-hour documentary on tissue manufacturing; at least I'll know that not one minute of screen time is wasted."Eyes Wide Shut" isn't as vacuous as, say, "Barry Lyndon" or "The Shining." Compared to those two, this one scoots along like a person trying to get to his car in the rain.
Though one might draw parallels to Lindsay Anderson's "O Lucky Man!" or Martin Scorsese's "After Hours," "Eyes Wide Shut" is no less than a complete work from the cold heart and brilliant mind of Stanley Kubrick alone.
Unlike most of Kubrick's earlier work, however, it does have an emotional subtext, which is used to devastating effect.Cruise, by the way, does an outstanding job, not as a trained, camera-conscious film actor, but as a mature, seasoned performer.
It is safe to say that this is her best performance to date, and those of us who have been ignoring her treasured abilities up until now (the Academy, critics, myself) will be astounded to see how far she's come since "Dead Calm."  Her high points:  the argument with her husband that ends by setting the film's plot in motion perfectly captures the way women lure men into arguments when the cause for one is nonexistent (and on Cruise's part, how men can't think fast enough to do anything about it), and her dream confession scene, in which she wakes laughing but becomes tearful during recollection.On a technical level, "Eyes Wide Shut" displays Kubrick's trademark perfectionism.
I'm open to many interpretations of this film, because Kubrick wanted the audience's eyes to remain wide open soon after they finished experiencing this masterpiece..
With the exception of a late-occurring scene of deadening over-explanation wholly unnecessary to the film on every level (and rather unusual for Kubrick), Eyes Wide Shut is utterly sensational, and represents another gleaming jewel in the master filmmaker's already studded crown.
Eyes Wide Shut is certain to be as closely scrutinized as many of Kubrick's other films (particularly because it is his final work), and its thoughtful and challenging treatment of such lightning-rod topics as marital honesty, sexual jealousy, and the perceived risks of disclosing one's fantasies (even to the single person you trust more than any other) is sure to draw some people in while pushing others away..
All his films remain in my mind with a vitality far beyond most of the other work I see, even though the details of the films are often boring or inscrutable.Eyes Wide Shut is no exception - there were many times in the movie where I could find no meaning or interest in an individual moment, but the overall experience is a lingering one with a deep impact - maybe Kubrick works the magic of making the spectator really _feel_ the characters turmoil and inner struggles by including so much of the mundane and seemingly unrelated incidents of "real life".A fine conclusion to an excellent career.p.s., being in Canada I had to put up with the "edited" version, which was certainly not subtle in its censorship.
From the director behind influential masterpieces like The Killing, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining & Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut marks the final entry in the decades-spanning, unprecedented & extraordinary filmmaking career of Stanley Kubrick.
And just like all of his reappraised works, is a classic that unveils more of its intricate layers on multiple viewings.Set in New York City, Eyes Wide Shut tells the story of Dr. William "Bill" Harford whose life spirals out of control when his wife tells him about an erotic fantasy she had about another man which shatters his faith in her.
Unable to get the image of his wife & the other man out of his head, he embarks on a night-long adventure during which he comes extremely close to cheating on his wife & also infiltrates a quasi-religious sexual ritual at a country mansion after learning about it from a friend.Co-written, produced & directed by Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut is a film about sexual desires that's jam-packed with symbolism & metaphorical elements.
Kubrick's direction makes efficient use of all his trademarks and just like before, he manages to push forward the existing boundaries of the medium while adding a few innovative tricks into the filmmaking manual in the process.The screenplay smears the plot with multitudes of themes & insinuations, the story unfolds in a slow, methodical manner, the leading characters have an in-depth complexity which is wonderfully illustrated by the master storyteller, each sequence is meticulously detailed & technically refined, and it has a lot to say about sex, infidelity, physical relations, desires & fantasies.
However, dialogue isn't one of its strengths for every time anyone says anything, the other character repeats the same as a question which becomes annoying after a while.The technical aspects always score very high marks in Kubrick films and Eyes Wide Shut is no exception.
Its 159 minutes of runtime & deliberately slow pace may feel like a challenging ordeal but it never becomes an issue once the drama sets in.The incorporation of classical songs to compliment the unfolding drama continues in Eyes Wide Shut and all the musical arrangements are wisely chosen & carefully infused into the storyline.
& Mrs. Harford, it's actually their on- spot chemistry that makes them click so well, and while there are no definite stand-outs, the contribution by its entire cast only works in the film's favour.On an overall scale, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut may not be as pathbreaking as most of his masterpieces but it's nonetheless a deeply fascinating meditation on sexual relations and despite its cynical tone, manages to be an erotic, enthralling & engaging thriller.
Trouble is, the real enigma is why anyone thought there was one to start with.There is a danger that Eyes Wide Shut will become, as Kubrick's last movie and the one he died making, some sort of cinematic Holy Grail, immune to all criticism.
It is as if halfway through, Kubrick changed his mind about what the film was about and then changed it back again for the last half hour, leaving neither element explored to any great degree.Like most of Kubrick's films, the characters are bland, narrow and un-engaging; Tom Cruise's character bumbles from one unrelated event to the next, purely on the motivation that he feels the need to cheat on his marriage because he misjudged his wife's ability to fantasise.
Any interest comes from your own desperate attempts to bring the various plot points together in some sort of cohesion.Most frustratingly, the film is littered with well-rounded, interesting characters and ideas and, like all Kubrick films, is beautifully shot.
But like many Kubrick films Eyes Wide Shut is ahead of its time in terms of artistic impression and thought-provocation.First I will like to talk about some of the criticisms many had about this film when it was first released.
After his wife Alice(Kidman) confesses a near act of infidelity, the "good-doctor" Bill Harbord(Cruise) goes on an odyssey-like walk through the empty streets on New York (Its suppose to symbolize his spiritual emptiness), in a vindictive pursuit to prove his character as a man.
In fact when I first saw A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as Dr. Strangelove I could not understand why the academy considers them classics, but they grew on me as well.In the end, Eyes Wide Shut like 2001: A Space Odyssey will be a film that was misunderstood by many people when it came out but inevitably will be widely considered as another landmark in the career of the greatest film-maker of all-time.Rating: 10/10 A Kubrick Classic.
Last night I went with a friend to see Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece.
Being the sort of mug film buff that I am, I thought that I should go to see a film made by an acknowledged master, who had  spent so much time getting it just right.When the film finally ground to a halt, the audience in the cinema stood up and as one started muttering things like "Is that it?",  "Thank goodness that's over" "Well, you can see why there are only two showings per day", "What a pile of ****".
Every scene could be halved in length and lose nothing and gain much.I was expecting a film in which Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise play roughly equally large parts.
The sun kept rising and falling at odd times, and characters would go back to somewhere they'd been the day before, to find that no one there had moved, changed clothes, or even finished what they were saying.Yes, there is a bit of nudity in it, but this is presented in scenes of such unnecessary length, and such little incident, that you just wish they'd get on with the next scene.Having more recently spoken to several other people who saw it, I have encountered near-uniform condemnation of this shamefully bad film.
But the truth is that this movie is a masterpiece, if you have seen it and felt like me after I first watched it, I encourage you to go to this website: http://collativelearning.com/EYES%20WIDE%20SHUT%20analysis.html and watch the three part analysis of Stanley Kubrick's final film.There are hidden clues throughout the film that show Kubrick's genius.
And this is exactly what we get while watching EWS – a story that combines the psychological traits of both dreams and reality  of being simultaneously asleep and awake  Eyes Wide Shut." -Rob Ager.I cannot stress enough how amazing this movie is.
Rob Ager's wonderful analysis, parts of which can be found on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj7Hw6OnbH8), will clue you in as to why you owe it to yourself to do so.In my opinion  and 2001 is the greatest film I have ever seen  Eyes Wide Shut is on the level of 2001 in terms of its calling us to question the nature of our humanity.
Continuing my plan to watch every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to Eyes Wide Shut (1999)Plot In A Paragraph: A New York City doctor (Cruise) who is married to an art curator (Nicole Kidman) pushes himself on a harrowing and dangerous night-long odyssey of sexual and moral discovery after his wife admits that she once almost cheated on him.Though often referred to as Stanley Kubrick's "unfinished masterpiece", the final edit of the film was actually presented to Warner Bros.
(by Kubrick) a full four days before his death, though the score and some special effects (computer generated people during the orgy scene) were not finalized.I have never got into this movie, it just left me cold the other two times I watched it.
I suspect the critics who gave a film the utmost positive reviews did so out of respect for its dead co-writer and director Stanley Kubrick.Eyes Wide Shut is an excruciatingly tedious and overlong movie that is more like the test of endurance than a thought-provoking philosophical movie such as Terrence Malick's flawed masterpiece The Thin Red Line.
I'm not easily offended as people might think (I consider Election one of the best movies of last year -- the sheer brilliance of the direction and screenplay blew me away -- though The Iron Giant takes the prize as my favorite movie of 1999).What irritates me most are not only the deliberately slow pace and Nicole Kidman's terrible acting (watch the long sequence in which she was spaced out and accuses her husband of cheating, then eventually confessed) but the shallow script that have no redeeming value whatsoever -- no story, no plot, nothing.
Eyes Wide Shut might as well have the same effect, but its lack of emotional distinction and absurdity (witness the weird and laughable ending) are the reasons I did not like the film.Stanley Kubrick tortured his actors and film crew during the making of Eyes Wide Shut for three years, and the final effort is not well worth it.
Whether it's the pauses without dialogue or the traditional Kubrick Long Shots, EWS is one of the best visually executed movies though it should also be praised due to the last work of the genius of Stanley Kubrick, from the signature end credits to the notable cuts of black , this film reads like contemporary Sade on the upper East Side.
Eyes wide Shut was based on a psychological dream novel and is a clever adaptation in modern society it's something eerie and strange about it that just makes it one of many visual stunning works in the Kubrick pantheon.
I wanted more after every minute, every scene was amazingly shot, the score is incredible and fits perfectly with the mood of the movie, which feels like a dream mostly, or even nightmarish.The movie was cast perfectly as both Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman give amazing performances to a very believable story that I could really identify with.
This is a very unique story that I'm sure most people can relate to.Eyes Wide Shut is a magnificent study on human psychology and ranks as one of Stanley Kubrick's best films..
Sadly, a lot of moviegoers are too shortsighted or narrow-minded to understand the film, which is why you get people saying it's the worst thing that Kubrick has ever come out with.
Based on a 1926 book called Dream Story, this tells about a doctor, played quite well by Tom Cruise, who goes on a night of sexual discovery after learning that his wife, played by Kidman who was his real wife at that time, almost cheated on him once.
If he wasn't good looking, he would have a hard time getting work.I guess if you have 2.5 hours to kill and don't mind a movie that takes you nowhere, you might enjoy this film..
Piano soundtracks have worked with other Cruise films, but in this one, it was just plain irritating.We get to see a lot of Nicole Kidman in the nude, but there is really very little sex.
But the fact that many people was disappointed with this film and saying that it is Kubrick's least work just makes me want to protest.
*Production Design/Special Effects: The costume and set pieces are grand and add to the feeling of the wealth that all of the characters have.*Conclusion: "Eyes Wide Shut" is a beautiful and gut-wrenching film that brings to light the evils of the elite and shows us the importance of needing to address feelings of unfaithfulness in our own relationships.
Eyes Wide Shut is a surrealistic mystery tale, a creepy thriller full of amazing scenes and rich colours.Tom Cruise gives a great performance (almost unrecognizable) as Dr. Bill Harford.
And since nudity never advances any plot points or gives us deep insight into a character's soul, filming 200 naked people seems pointless (unless you just wanted to catch a porn movie starring Tom Cruise, because that's all this is).
And the fact that I get it when I watch Eyes Wide Shut tells me that even if it's misunderstood, even if there is nothing to understand, Kubrick's final film was one of tremendous importance and validity.10 out of 10..
"Eyes Wide Shut" makes you feel like no other film has ever done..
From the second scene in the film, where Alice (Kidman) is shown on the toilet (just something perfectly natural, yet never shown in films) as they're getting ready for the party, you know this is going to be a different kind of a film.From the trailer that I saw so many years ago, with Chris Isaak's 'Baby did a bad bad thing' playing in the background while Cruise/Kidman/Kubrick was displayed in bold writing, I was expecting some sort of sordid, sleazy film.
I know a lot of people feel their pacing was very slow, but, when you think about it, Eyes Wide Shut is a very theatrical film.
I don't think there could have been another film that would have fit the end of the century like Kubrick's EWS.
I would accuse her of bad acting, but given the knowledge of the way Kubrick worked, this must be the way he wanted the scene to go.Driven by a jealous vision of his wife making love to another man, Cruise sets out on an "odyssey" that takes him all over New York for a series of meaningless encounters with various characters in which virtually nothing happens.
Now I believe it can be said that Stanley Kubrick was a filmmaking genius even though he directed 'Eyes Wide Shut.'.
Like pretty much all of Kubrick's other films, I think that "Eyes Wide Shut" will grow in stature with time.
Nevertheless, the film is a visual treat, and that is the reason that I keep coming back to Kubrick: he is a visionary with images."Eyes Wide Shut" is the last stunning work of the director's illustrious career.
After two months I've seen every Kubrick film in order, from Fear and Desire to Eyes Wide Shut.
But everything serves its purpose in Eyes Wide Shut, like the greatest films.
Eyes Wide Shut is Kubrick's worst film.
And about this time, he leaves for a certain funeral and this is how his bizarre odyssey begins.Kubrick builds up the atmosphere like a hypnotist, and makes sure the viewer watches the story unfold in awe..and get a feel of what Cruise's character experiences.The rest of the movie has to be seen to be believed and any synopsis won't do justice to this magnificent film.This is one of Cruise's finest performances.