When I first saw Eyes Wide Shut, as a capstone to a semester's work analytically examining Stanley Kubrick's entire oeuvre, I thought it was the embodiment of everything he had strived for as a filmmaker. A fantastic, flawless finale to an already exemplary career. This time, however, after forgetting a lot of our classroom discussions of his works, I failed to see the same brilliance I originally found so evident. Not to say it wasn't there, just that it wasn't obvious. Instead, I found a powerful, engaging, ambiguous, intellectual foray into the nature of men and women, the masks and labels we wear, the fears and uncertainties we experience, and our deepest dreams and desires. The depth of thematics, matched with the depth of technical expertise, convince me more now than ever that this movie is deserving of a 5 star rating.The plot follows Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) as a seemingly happily-married couple in the luxurious areas of New York City. After they attend an opulent cocktail party with tantalizing hints of infidelity, Alice reveals a moment of sexual weakness a year prior. Jealous, Bill experiences a number of dream-like events that push him to the limits of sexual infidelity, but never past it. Everyone he interacts with reacts to him as a sexual object, to such an unrealistic level as to appear wholly impossible and fabricated. Is it all in his head? Not only does the film examine the human psyche, but in so doing it analyzes the difference between lust and love and the need for sex in marriage. It additionally tackles the concepts of social standing and money as valuations, identities, and reasons for remorse and guilt. Indeed, there is little this film does not cover.
The one complaint I had with the movie was its slow pacing. Most of the time I found it fluid and natural, but there was one scene in particular that I found unbearably slow. The editing itself was not to blame--the dissolves were used as perfectly as they were in The Godfather and every scene itself was necessary--but rather the delivery of the painfully banal dialogue. The characters talked very deliberately, which is not a bad thing, but it can be a bit much to take in for 2 hours and 45 minutes. The script as a whole is a mixed bag; nothing interesting ever occurred in the dialogue, but the overarching story itself and the introspection it forces us to consider are worth every minute. The acting was phenomenal, managing a lot on the screen from very little on the page. Cruise and Kidman fleshed their characters into complex human beings with subtleties and mistakes we recognize exist outside of the film. The music was an integral part of this movie, as necessary and unforgettable as it was in 2001. The cinematography was just as beautiful as all his previous films, especially his use of repetition and symmetry to match with his thematic exploration.
This film remains poorly criticized as a result of bad marketing, but it is not a film to be missed. Even if you disagree with its message or with its methods, it brings to light issues that should be discussed openly instead of kept in the dark. Maybe not at cocktail parties, but perhaps between partners. And lucky for us, if there's a topic that makes you uncomfortable, there are a million others you can talk about.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120663/