Film review by Kevin Patterson
EYES WIDE SHUT Rating: ***1/2 (out of four) R, 1999 Director: Stanley Kubrick Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael Starring Cast: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack
EYES WIDE SHUT arrives in theaters as one of the most anticipated releases of 1999, overshadowed perhaps only by STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE. The reason for all the hype, of course, is that it is not only the first film from Stanley Kubrick in thirteen years, but it is also his last, as he died shortly after showing an initial cut to the cast and to studio executives. This situation has led to some controversy over whether or not the film, as released, truly represents Kubrick's intentions for the final product, especially after it became known that digital images were inserted during one scene in order to ensure an R-rating. Adding to the hype has been one report that Kubrick had told a friend that, in his estimation, Eyes Wide Shut was his best film yet.
I don't think that EYES WIDE SHUT is, or could have been, Kubrick's best film yet. It does not reach the heights of DR. STRANGELOVE or 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and I doubt that any post-production tinkering would have changed that. But with all the attention that EYES WIDE SHUT has received, we tend to forget that Kubrick probably never conceived of this film as any sort of "grand finale." He simply set out to make an original and thought-provoking drama, and at that task he has succeeded admirably.
As EYES WIDE SHUT begins, we are introduced to a wealthy New York couple, Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman). They go to a party hosted by Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack), a patient of Bill's who moves in an even more elite crowd than the Harfords. At the party, both Bill and Alice, after having a few too many drinks each, flirt briefly with others, but nothing comes of it and they go home. The following evening, while the two are smoking pot in their bedroom, Alice asks Bill about the women who were with him at the party. They quarrel over whether or not there is any jealousy present in their relationship, and finally she recounts a story about a handsome naval officer she noticed on their family vacation years ago and claims that, had the officer shown any interest in her, she might well have left Bill and their young daughter for him.
Bill is understandably upset, but before he can resolve things with Alice, he is called away to the home of a patient whose father has just died. After he leaves, he goes out for a walk and encounters a variety of sexual temptations, but never actually acts on any of them. He goes to the apartment of a prostitute, for example, but his cellular phone rings before the two of them do anything. Eventually he makes his way to an isolated mansion, where he finds a strange ritual taking place that seems to be a hybrid between a religious ceremony and a sexual orgy. All the participants are masked, and a secret password is required to enter. A woman approaches Bill and warns him that he is in danger, and soon the masters of ceremonies realize that he is not supposed to be there. It seems inevitable that he will somehow be "punished" and possibly even killed, when suddenly the unidentified woman intervenes on his behalf. He is ordered to leave immediately, and no one will tell him what will become of the woman now.
At times, it seems as though EYES WIDE SHUT is about to settle into the mode of a classic thriller, with a single protagonist on the run from powerful, shadowy forces. Bill has reason to believe that the mysterious woman from the orgy, as well as the acquaintance who illicitly gave him the password, have been killed. When he tries to determine their whereabouts, he is warned in no uncertain terms to stay away, and the safety of his family is threatened. There are a few elements that are disappointingly conventional, such as an ominous figure in a trenchcoat who seems to be tailing Bill, or the two anonymous men who approach him in a black car and step out to deliver him a typewritten note. (There is, however, at least a hint that this stereotypical, clichéd 'bad guy' behavior may have been intentional.)
For the most part, however, Kubrick and co-writer Frederic Raphael keep the focus on the emotional suspense, as Bill and Alice continue to deal with their personal fears and insecurities about themselves and about each other. One of the most interesting aspects of the story is that their relationship nearly falls apart over sexual jealousy despite the fact that neither of them ever actually cheats on the other. Instead, they are driven apart by mere suggestions, possibilities, and even dreams -- one night, Bill comes home to a distraught Alice, who has had a nightmare in which she imagined herself having sex with countless men at once and laughing at Bill as he looked on. And even as he fears for his life, Bill continues to flirt with the New York City sexual underworld, still never actually betraying his wife but coming dangerously close at least once more. The thriller plot is composed similarly out of suggestion and ambiguity, as it is never clear if any real violence has taken place or if the entire situation is just a combination of unusual coincidences and intimidation tactics. The conflicts in EYES WIDE SHUT arise not out of actual events but out of the possibilities that exist in the minds of Alice and Bill, as they contemplate sexual abandon and, in Bill's case, physical danger. Issues of internal moral character become more important than legalistic details of what exactly happened (or, in this case, didn't happen) and why and when.
Kubrick's talent for hypnotic style and masterful orchestration makes him an ideal director for this sort of material, which relies more on thematic coherence and on the intensity of the psychological experiences than on its intentionally flimsy plot. He creates a convincing cinematic landscape, with an emphasis on the bleak and slightly decadent aspects of life in New York City, then utilizing them to construct a nightmarish excursion into the sexual underworld that is at once frightening yet believable. The orgy scene in particular is a perfectly composed piece of surreal tension, as the participants chant in a foreign language and engage in mechanical, ritualistic sex as Bill wanders through, perhaps fascinated, perhaps repulsed, and perhaps both. What little dialogue the scene contains is spoken from behind masks, creating the eerie impression of voices dissociated from the actual persons, floating in a void where ordinary human interactions have no place.
As is typical of Kubrick's films, the characters' quandaries arise out of a form of dehumanization, in this case the possibility that simple, impersonal sex could replace devotion and love as the center of Bill's and Alice's lives. Despite its explicit content, EYES WIDE SHUT is not an exhortation to the mindless sort of "sexual freedom" that permeates Hollywood. (If anything, it gets a little too obviously preachy; a brief subplot involving an HIV scare can't help but come off like something out of a high school sex-ed video.) The scenes of nudity, which are used almost exclusively to suggest infidelity and objectification, are more disturbing than anything else, and are certainly not intended to be erotic or sensational: stylistically, EYES WIDE SHUT has much more in common with BLUE VELVET or EXISTENZ than it does with the latest soft core direct-to-video garbage.
There are times when the psychological drama and the suspense thriller seem to rest awkwardly side-by-side, but Kubrick and Raphael effectively resolve both threads at once in a conclusion that is low-key but appropriate and actually somewhat optimistic. There are no real scenes of confrontation in the final reels of EYES WIDE SHUT. Instead, the threat of physical harm and conspiracy is marginalized to the point where Bill feels he can safely leave behind the strange events of recent days, and he and Alice seem ready to count their blessings and move forward. And yet this is not a picture-perfect ending. There are some lingering doubts in their dialogue in the last scene, and it is not lost on them that they may have been saved partly by coincidence and lack of opportunity.
Kubrick has always been known as a somewhat pessimistic filmmaker, perhaps not without reason: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE imagined a future world overrun by selfishness and violence, DR. STRANGELOVE ended with nuclear holocaust, and the "happy" ending of 2001 showed a character who achieved enlightenment only when he ceased to be human. EYES WIDE SHUT demonstrates that he can play the other side of the coin as well and create characters who are not defeated by the unavoidable dangers of his troubled universe. Bill and Alice don't quite descend all the way into the abyss and climb back out, as is par for the course in a cautionary tale with an optimistic conclusion, but at the very least they step right up to the edge of the abyss and still manage to turn away.
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