EYES WIDE SHUT RATING: 6.5 / 10 --> So-so
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Director Stanley Kubrick passed away in his sleep only four days after handing in his final cut of this film. Lovebirds Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman spent close to two years of their lives shooting this film with the infamous perfectionist. Harvey Keitel, well...let's just say that everyone got really stressed. Now, let's see what all the fuss was about...
PLOT: A wife, upset by her husband's lack of jealousy, begins to flirt around and admit to having thoughts of adultery. Her husband, shaken by his wife's forthrightness in this respect, spends the night wandering from one very odd sexually induced circumstance to another.
CRITIQUE: This film is not for everyone. It is a complex, overly symbolic, turtle-paced, dramatic sexual investigation, which features some great acting from Tom Cruise, a consistently intriguing eye from director Kubrick, a creepy score and plenty of beautifully photographed sequences. Did I fully understand the whole movie? Certainly not. Would I be willing to watch it again after discussing its complete potency with others? Certainly. But understand that if you are the type of viewer who likes a film's meaning handed to you on a silver platter, certainly, this one ain't for you. This film is basically a big-budget art-house flick starring the Cruises and directed by a legend in the field of movie creation. It's also very nice to look at, with some solid acting, but much like many other art-house films, there is way too much that is left to interpretation, leaving you feeling somewhat hollow immediately after the film's conclusion. The film's message, much like any other piece of art, is left to be quite subjective, and certainly better understood after several viewings, or at least some coaching.
Having said that, I do believe that the film moved along at too slow a pace, with many coupled conversations seeming to go on far beyond their interest point. And this is all despite the fact that the subject matters at hand, jealousy and sex, struck a nerve with me. I personally would have appreciated a much deeper insight into their rooted interplay, as opposed to the larger emphasis paid to one very particularly strange scenario featuring a lot of naked people. I don't think I've seen this many breasts parading around in a movie since the last porno that "a friend left at my house." The film's brighter points feature a superb presentation of sights and sounds through a grainy-gaze, plenty of joyous Christmas lights sprinkled all around, and a typically memorable score by the man named Kubrick (Despite its obvious use for dramatics at certain points.)
All in all, much like many of Mr. Kubrick's other films, this is not the kind of movie that can be fully digested in one sitting. If you are the type of person who likes to decontruct puzzles, loves naked people and has a hard-on for either Tom Cruise or Stanley Kubrick, then check this one out, you might truly enjoy its uniqueness. If, on the other hand, you don't like long, generally slow and esoteric films, featuring Nicole Kidman laughing way too much, then I suggest you skip out on this one altogether, and maybe check back into it in a couple of years. Who knows...your eyes might be willing to be much more wide open by then :) (Sorry, but it's been a long day, and that's the only cheezy pun that I could come up with at this late hour...)
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Believe it or not, infamously reclusive director Stanley Kubrick actually makes a cameo in this film. Look for him sitting at a table in the cafe where Bill gets Nick's address. Actors Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh's scenes had to be deleted when both actors could not return to London to re-shoot some of their scenes. Director Kubrick respectively replaced the duo with actors Sidney Pollack and Marie Richardson. A VHS copy of the Tom Cruise movie RAIN MAN (8/10) can be seen in Alice and Bill's bedroom on top of their entertainment stand during their marijuana-enhanced argument. A 65-second sequence during the film's orgy scene was digitally altered. Kubrick, apparently suspecting he'd have trouble getting past the MPAA ratings board in the U.S., authorized an edit of the scene which consisted of superimposing objects, and people, over the exposed genitalia of some actors. The film did indeed receive an R rating, rather than the dreaded NC-17. European versions of the film will be uncensored (natch!). The paintings hung on the wall of the Harford's apartment are the work of Kubrick's widow, Christiane, and their daughter Katharina. Leelee Sobieski, the teen actress who plays a key role in the film, has told reporters that she got along beautifully with the reclusive Kubrick, and asked him for a lock of hair for her collection (apparently she collects the hair of famous people she works with). An amused Kubrick complied. Sadly, Tom Cruise did not. Astonishingly, the budget for Eyes Wide Shut, despite a 15-month shoot, came in a relatively modest $65 million. The streets of Manhattan where Cruise walks were re-created, in meticulous detail, at Kubrick's Pinewood Studios outside of London, where the entire movie was filmed. Kubrick retained tight control of the film through the end, including its marketing campaign: He personally selected the teaser clip and trailer images to be shown. And he had strong feelings regarding the press, with the New York Daily News reporting that the director had left instructions that only five publications were to be granted interviews: the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Premiere, TIME, and Newsweek. Kubrick also wanted to ensure that the teaser and trailer were shown on the Internet.
Review Date: July 16, 1999
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Actors: Tom Cruise as Dr. Bill Harford
Nicole Kidman as Alice Harford
Genre: Drama
Year of Release: 1999
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(c) 1999 Berge Garabedian
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