Eyes Wide Shut

I have finally completed my overview of Stanley Kubrick's feature-length filmography. While Fear and Desire is a borderline atrocious glorified student film, his final effort, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), is a beautiful piece of work. Although flawed and occasionally hard to swallow, it's an engrossing film that manages to remain entertaining through its lengthy run-time.

Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) is a New York City Doctor living a comfortable life with his pretty wife Alice (Nicole Kidman). Though Harford is more than happy to flirt with pretty girls on his downtime, he is shocked - shocked! - when his wife expresses her own sexual yearnings. An unlikely series of events leads Bill to an encounter with a teenaged prostitute (Vinessa Shaw), and through his musician friend Nick Nightingale (Todd Field) winds up a masquerade ball/orgy full of powerful people. Afterwards, Harford finds himself possibly involved in a murder mystery (or two), seemingly stalked by the orgy's participants.

It must be said off the bat: Eyes Wide Shut's story is largely lacking. Based on the novel "Traumnovelle" by Arthur Schnitzler, it imparts Victorian sensibilities and views of sexuality onto the modern day. Thus, it takes a huge suspension of disbelief to buy that Bill could be so bewildered by his wife's sexual longings; especially someone as pretty and openly sensual as Alice. However, Kubrick manages to dodge this shortcoming by focusing the film elsewhere: on Bill's reaction to his wife's sexuality, and his own vulnerabilities.

Kubrick already showed a keen interest in the male sexual ego in Lolita (and Dr. Strangelove, in a more perverse, oblique way), and that is the focus of Eyes Wide Shut. It comes close to Hitchcock's Vertigo as one of the most interesting explorations of the male sexual ego and society's double-standards towards sexuality. Working girl-turned-housewife Alice is tormented by merely desiring sexuality; Bill, however, is affected even more strongly, not by his own flirtations with pretty girls, but by his wife's mental infidelity. When a routine housecall leads to a bizarre odyssey in the New York night, Bill finds the shoe on the other foot; he is merely a voyeur, and yet his exploits have the affect of actual adultery. The mirror between their "imagined" infidelities is brilliantly done; neither actually does anything wrong but both feel horrible regardless. The movie turns into a quasi-thriller after the orgy scene, with an unconvincing exposition scene involving Bill's industrialist friend (Sydney Pollack in actor mode) but remains interesting until the end due to Kubrick's sure direction and handling.

Kubrick's direction is beyond brilliant. His slow, langorous pace suits the film perfectly; though some material is arguably superfluous, not a frame of film seems wasted. He shows his usual eye for set design and excellent camera work. The orgy scene is too bizarre to be erotic, but the gorgeous costumes and art direction make it a fascinating sight to behold regardless. The film is closer to 2001 than Barry Lyndon; weaknesses in story aside, the gorgeous, rivetting direction makes it something truly engrossing. As usual, his use of classical and "found" music is exceptional - with Jocelyn Pook contributing some fine original music as well.

Tom Cruise gives a fine performance as Bill. It's not an all-time great performance but it's arguably the high point of Cruise's career; under Kubrick's direction Cruise's pretty boy star persona becomes something rivetting. Nicole Kidman is quite good although her character is unfortunately backgrounded for most of the film. The supporting cast is rather nondescript, however.

Eyes Wide Shut is a fitting capper on the career of a legendary director. For better or worse, it epitomizes everything in Kubrick's repertoire, and creates an original, mesmerizing (if occasionally frustrating) final work.