This has some major spoilers for the film, so be forwarned. The won't appear till later in the article, so you're safe for now.
Eyes Wide Shot (1999) Running time: 2 hours 39 minutes 2.35:1 Theatrical aspect **** out of ****
Starring: Tom Cruise (Dr. Bill Hardford), Nicole Kidman (Alice Hardford), Sidney Pollack, Leelee Sobieski, Todd Field (Nick Nightingale) Directed, Co-Written, Produced by: Stanley Kubrick Inspired by: "Traumnovelle" by: Arthur Schnitzer
This is an interesting film. I must first off state, that you musn't believe ANY of the rumors of the film. Cruise is not a cross dresser, Kidman doesn't shoot heroin, and there's not any scene between the two that would suggest that they were aided by a sex therapist.
The look of the film is to suggest that it follows the translation of the inspired book from the film was written. The translation, "Dream Novel," makes you thing that the film should have been titled Dream Film. There is a noticable amount of graininess to the film. Rather than complain about it as some may and already have, see it as a style of shooting. I would gather that Kubrick got on another lighting kick shooting this and shot with as much natural light as he could. This and the film looks like it was pushed another two stops to add more grain and brighten it slightly.
As an auteur and stickler for details, Kubrick seemed to be a bit lax on this one. The film looks great, but there are a good deal of bloopers/flubs that occur. You see LOTS of boom shots (in reflection) and you see the camera at least twice. 16 months for this? Wow. Reflection is the biggest killer for this film. Their apartment and almost everything in the film casts reflections and the crew can be seen in these, some quite glaringly.
One more topic of heated discussion: I saw the "Austin Powers" version, and to be perfectly frank, unless you know where the overlays are supposed to be, you'll probably not see them. Two girls standing next to each other look a little suspicious, but I can wait for the unrated version on video to see it the way it's supposed to be.
Spoilers below:
The film itself starts with (Cruise) Bill and (Kidman) Alice getting ready for a little X-mas soiree. They go to a quite elegant party in what seems to be a storagehouse for lighting equipment, which is actually an apartment owned by Pollack.
Bill runs into an old friend from medical school who is now the party's entertainment. Soon after, Bill and Alice are flirting with others at the party, thinking that the other has not noticed. Bill is called to help with a partygoer who has had a bit too much of a good time.
The next day, Bill and Alice, casually smoking marijunana in their bedroom discuss the previous nights flirtations. They both discover that they both knew about the flirting. Bill starts talking about what women can provide in a relationship, and gets Alice extremely angry. In her hazy state, she tells of an opportunity she almost acted on to cheat on Bill, not caring about the possible aftereffects.
Bill gets called away when one of his patients dies, and goes to console his daughter. When his patient's engaged daughter makes a plea for his love and affection, he is struck with images of an affair that never occured between his wife, Alice and a naval officer. He sees "opportunity" as a betrayal to his wife, and before they can continue, they are interrupted.
As he strolls home, he encounters a hooker. Seeing another "opportunity" arise, he follows the hooker home. They toy around, but before the act ensues, Alice calls his cell phone. He breaks the date with the hooker, and heads back out into the night.
He passes a lounge and notices that his old medical school buddy is playing, so he heads in. When he meets the friend, the friend reveals that for extra scratch, he plays these strange parties, while blindfolded. Bill is intrigued and wants to go to one. Nick reluctantly sets him up with directions and a password.
What follows this is a short meeting where Bill obtains a costume for this party and meets a young girl, Leelee Sobieski, and her father. The young girl has drawn his eye, but her young age, and the prescence of her father deter this from happening.
He gets to the party, which is to say the least, a strange affair. After partaking in some strange "religious" right, women and men pair off for the orgy to end all orgies. A woman warns Bill in disguise, that he should leave before he is exposed as a fraud at the party.
He is detained after a second warning, where he is outed for not being in the group.
After getting home, he hides the evidence of his evenings events. Unable to carry on in his day, he tries piece the events of the previous night together. In the process, he finds that Nick has disappeared, his life is possibly in danger, and the woman that warned him has died.
I'm trying to save a bit of the film here, it's worth sitting through to get to this point. This is only about 100 minutes at this point.
This is a strange film, because despite the events that occur, the film has a strong family message behind it. It will be hard to pidgeonhole this film as a certain kind of a film. It's got sex in it, it has nudity, drugs, and many more immoralistic values.
But they all serve to show why they are bad in one's life.
I recommend this film highly on many merits. Cruise and Kidman are rarely together for longer than 5 minutes after the opening scene, and the secrecy that shrouded the film should hopefully be apparent as to why it was kept once you see it for yourself.
Go for it, and keep your eyes open.
Aaron Strader tomservo@airmail.net
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