So consider, as we settle in to live with this long, advisedly slow, mesmerizing film, how challenging and ambiguous its narrative strategy is. The source is an Arthur Schnitzler novella titled Traumnovelle (or "Dream Story"), and it's a moot question how much of Eyes Wide Shut itself is dream, from the blue shadows frosting the Harfords' bedroom to the backstage replica of New York's Greenwich Village that Kubrick built in England. Its major movement is an imaginative night-journey (even the daylight parts of it) taken by a man reeling from his wife's teasing confession of fantasized infidelity, and toward the end there is a token gesture of the couple waking to reality and, perhaps, a new, chastened maturity. Yet on some level--visually, psychologically, logically--every scene shimmers with unreality. Is everything in the movie a dream? And if so, who is dreaming it at any given moment, and why?

Don't settle for easy answers. Kubrick's ultimate odyssey beckons. And now the dream is yours. --Richard T. Jameson

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It was inevitable that Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut would be the most misunderstood film of 1999. Kubrick died four months prior to its release, and there was no end to speculation how much he would have tinkered with the picture, changed it, "fixed" it. We'll never know. But even without the haunting enigma of the director's death--and its eerie echo/anticipation in the scene when Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) visits the deathbed of one of his patients--Eyes Wide Shut would have perplexed and polarized viewers and reviewers. After all, virtually every movie of Kubrick's post-U.S. career had; only 1964's Dr. Strangelove opened to something approaching consensus. Quite apart from the author's tinkering, Kubrick's movies themselves always seemed to change--partly because they changed us, changed the world and the ways we experienced and understood it. And we may expect Eyes Wide Shut to do the same. Unlike Kubrick himself, it has time.

So consider, as we settle in to live with this long, advisedly slow, mesmerizing film, how challenging and ambiguous its narrative strategy is. The source is an Arthur Schnitzler novella titled Traumnovelle (or "Dream Story"), and it's a moot question how much of Eyes Wide Shut itself is dream, from the blue shadows frosting the Harfords' bedroom to the backstage replica of New York's Greenwich Village that Kubrick built in England. Its major movement is an imaginative night-journey (even the daylight parts of it) taken by a man reeling from his wife's teasing confession of fantasized infidelity, and toward the end there is a token gesture of the couple waking to reality and, perhaps, a new, chastened maturity. Yet on some level--visually, psychologically, logically--every scene shimmers with unreality. Is everything in the movie a dream? And if so, who is dreaming it at any given moment, and why?

Don't settle for easy answers. Kubrick's ultimate odyssey beckons. And now the dream is yours. --Richard T. Jameson

The first thing to bear in mind are that this film was hyped way beyond necessity. As if the general public had any interest in the "Kubrick" listed below "Cruise" and "Kidman". To them this was just another Big Actor's next Big Movie. Passing it off like a "real Hollywood couple gets busy on the big screen" heightened expectations for something Kubrick wasn't trying to achieve. It suffered the same audience reaction as The Phantom Menace, and made only a fraction of the money.

Critics seemed to be lining up to take potshots at this film. Why? Recent history shows us that all of Kubrick's films from 2001 onward have been attacked critically, and subsequently hailed as classic years later. The same is true of most of Orson Welles' work. Few critics took the time to see this movie more than once before spewing their venom. A filmmaker like Kubrick is not going for direct emotional contact with the audience. He is aiming far deeper, asking the viewer to reflect on not only the images, but the themes, and the emotional investments of the characters. The subtlety is not something common in today's films, and something critics apparently can't process quick enough to meet a press deadline.

For all those complain that the film isn't sexy or erotic enough are missing the point completely. It's not about sex. It's about many other things, some of which linger in the background, some that aren't noticeable on the initial viewing. Kubrick raises questions about our institution of marriage, the nature of faith, commitment, temptation. That most in the audience weren't willing to meet Kubrick, Cruise, and Kidman halfway in this meditation isn't a comment on the quality on the filmmaking, it's a shortcoming of the sensory-deadened society. If Kubrick had been more in touch with today's film culture, would he have bothered to give us this complex of an experience? Let's thank him for his seclusion.

A NOTE on the DVD not being letterboxed: Kubrick (again, like Welles) preferred the aspect ratio of television, and left extra space in his frame for their widescreen theatrical showings (some are letterboxed on Home Video as well). The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut are meant to be seen in the full-screen standard format, and therefore aren't available in letterbox, so don't feel you're being cheated out of any compositional content. Unfortunately you are being cheated by Warner Bros' refusal to remove the digital figures blocking the orgy scenes, inserted for theatrical release to secure the "R" rating. Only in America...


People have no clue   April 26, 2000
 125 out of 150 found this review helpful

I work at a major video store, and I can't believe how much people HATE this movie. 9 out of 10 people feel it's terrible. I never hear anyone complain about "The Bone Collector" or "Stigmata", which are truly pieces of garbage. I do feel "Eyes WIde Shut" was marketed completely wrong. People just don't like movies that are different. People usually complain about this movie being slow. They usually say, "It's so slooooww." Does every movie need to be fasssttt? It is only slow if you have some problem keeping your attention span focused. This is truly one of the most engrossing and brilliant films I've seen in a long time. There is nothing else like it, unlike the other titles mentioned above, but still people love to hate it. The music, acting, cinematography and pacing are PERFECT. There may be a few minor flaws, but the strenghts outweigh them 10 fold. If you don't watch this movie because your friends tell you it's awful, that's your loss. Go back to your "Double Jeopardy" and "American Pie" and let people who KNOW what the cinema and Stanley Kubrick are all about.


Marriage is always under siege   August 25, 2004
 69 out of 76 found this review helpful

Eyes Wide Shut is not the self-indulgent, opaque film that I had been led by some reviewers to expect. It is clear and focused with an important and worthy theme. Kubrick is exploring the nature of human sexuality in light of recent conclusions derived from evolutionary biology. The theme can be stated simply: "marriage is a fortress continually under siege." To be able to use Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as his married couple, who not so incidentally were actually married to one another at the time, was quite a coup since it lent accessibility and immediacy to his theme. We are able to catch glimpses of what their married life might have been like and to see that marriage played out against the temptations of a cosmopolitan lifestyle. Indeed with their subsequent separation, Kubrick's theme is ironically supported.

Cruise plays Dr. Bill Harford, an attractive, high status, confident male who has always deceived himself about his sexual nature and the nature of women and especially the nature of his wife, Alice. They go to a party and act out some "teasing themselves" roles, as they have undoubtedly done before. Nothing comes of it since they are circumspect people. But the next night Alice decides to strip away her husband's smug confidence about her nature and expose to him the truth about feminine sexuality, and so tells him a little story about how she was moved to abandonment by just a glance from a man in uniform. Her expression is so vivid and powerful that Bill, stunned and shocked, begins to imagine this event that never took place, an event Alice has assured him, might well have taken place. As he visualizes, he begins to explore himself as various expressions of human sexuality are thrown his way, the prostitute, the gay-bashing young men, the teenage girl entertaining older men...etc. What he sees behind his mask watching the enactment of a secret medieval pagan ceremony tempts and enlightens him.

This film did not work well for a general audience for several reasons. One, many people did NOT identify with the privileged and glamorous couple. Two, the resolution of the theme was without the usual violence and/or sexual indulgence common in contemporary American cinema, a disappointment for some. Three, many young couples viewing the film together, or at least in light of their own marriages, were made uncomfortable and threatened by being reminded of their own temptations and frustrations. To have the truth of our duplicitous natures rubbed in our faces, as it were, is not something everybody wants to sit still for. Most people lie to themselves about their sexual behavior and especially their hidden sexual desires most of the time. Kubrick wanted us to see how compromised we really are. Finally, some were disappointed by an ending in which we see that we are human, all too human, and we have to accept that and live with it. Bill, realizing what he has done, not so much in action, as in his heart, cries out to Alice, what shall we do now? And she wisely says (because she has already figured this out): Be grateful that one day does not make an entire lifetime.

What is wonderful about a film like this is that, instead of going to the movies, fat and comfortable with the steak and wine in our bellies, expecting to be diverted from the irritations of our lives and to be massaged by the story upon the screen (as in say, You've Got Mail (1998) or Titanic (1998)) instead we are confronted with some uncomfortable truths about our own lives, and made to squirm. Our eyes are indeed wide shut, and we kid ourselves and tell ourselves lies about who we are sexually and what we really feel and want. Marriage is a compromise with the world and with our nature. Something is gained and something is lost, but this is no perfect world; and just as it is better to be respectable and a member of the establishment than to sleep in the streets, it is better to marry and maintain that marriage against our animal nature than it is to toss it away.

Kidman is mesmerizing and reinforces her reputation as great talent. As always she becomes the character she is playing. Cruise is clever, cute and has great timing. The sets are crisp and absolutely right for the story, and the dialogue is first class. The sometimes annoying score is appropriate. But this is not a great movie. Some of the scenes could have been sped up, and Kubrick did play the suspense card a little too slowly at times. I would rank it just below the best of Kubrick's work, somewhere between Dr. Strangelove (1964) and The Shining (1980), superior to Spartacus (1960) but not quite on the level of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Certainly we see the mark of the mature artist here in both theme and treatment.

See this for Stanley Kubrick, one of cinema's most accomplished and respected artists. It was his last completed film before he died. Would that we had another like him.


Perfectly Awful   March 1, 2000
 49 out of 88 found this review helpful

First: No one admires Kubrick's good films more than I do. Until this, he never made a bad one (though I don't know if "bad" can be applied to something as freakishly entertaining as "Eyes Wide Shut"). Three or four of his movies are among my all-time favorites; and I was very saddened by his death. But I think we ought to review the movie, not the man. It's an insult to any great director for us to celebrate his films uncritically, just because of his heroic stature in the medium, or for reasons of sentiment. A private person like Kubrick, especially, would be disgusted by this. The thirty or so takes he shot for every set-up in "Eyes Wide Shut" are all the evidence we need that he would wish his last work to be judged solely on its own merits. Let's dispense with the argument, often given below, that those who don't love this film simply "don't understand it". That's a lazy dodge. None of these reviewers explain what it is the rest of us aren't getting; they resort to vague terms like "dream-like" and "intense." For them, the "brilliance" of this movie lies in its atmosphere, or in some other ethereal quality that exists--or doesn't--beyond the realm of verbal expression or refutation. And so it should be kept out of these discussions. Judging this film's "atmosphere" is especially difficult for me, since I laughed helplessly through every scene both times I saw it. Yet apparently this film speaks to some people on a special, semi-rational level, so that they feel a wild need to defend it. (Witness the suspiciously high "unhelpful" ratings under the other negative reviews, presumably the result of a couple of activists hitting the "no" button a hundred times). But it's probable that if some anonymous, first-time director had made this mess, it would have meant nothing to anyone, and perhaps would never even have been released. Looking hard at it, you can sort of see the chalk-lines of the masterpiece Kubrick thought he was making. It wouldn't take a lot of self-delusion to simply ignore the cat-calls from the rest of the audience, and pronounce it a success. I wanted Kubrick's last film to be great, too. I rushed out to see it at the very first show in Columbia. And I could not believe my eyes. Or ears. Nothing in this film works. The funereal pace, the generic yet ponderous dialogue, the portentous piano score cueing up non-surprises, the threnodial orgy set to a dirge, with masked porn-stars who talk like Star Trek priestesses: all of it is hilariously pompous, and completely misfired. And none of it leads anywhere. What can you say about a movie whose plot-twists lag a full hour behind the I.Q. of the dimmest viewer? That it's insulting? Hopelessly out of touch? The thuddingly obvious exposition at the end is maybe the worst (and most superfluous) of its kind ever filmed. It extinguishes whatever magic or eeriness was left. And you can't believe Tom is so stupid not to have figured these things out on his own. But then--as usual--Tom's lifeless mask (that is, his face, not that rhinestone thing) gives no clue of what, if anything, he is thinking. And the other actors do not compensate. Kubrick's theme, that dream and desire possess a lethal power different, but no less consequential, than that of real actions in the everyday, was far better illustrated by the rich dreams he shared with us in the past.


Warner messes up with this release but it's still great   October 23, 2007
 37 out of 38 found this review helpful

The Special Edition is a welcome release simply because it's the unrated, European, uncensored version of the film. I won't begin to review the film itself except to say that it's probably Kubrick's least appreciated and most underrated film--undeservedly so-- I personally think it's just as brilliant as his other works. See it more than once before you decide.

That said, the new Warner release has some flaws. The disk is supposed to contain BOTH versions of the film (unrated and rated), but it ONLY contains the unrated version (better that than just the rated one!). But the packaging says it contains both, so there's a big boo-boo. Also, it was originally advertised that the film would contain commentary by Sydney Pollack and someone else-- but there is no commentary on the film (and it doesn't say as such on the packaging... so it must have been decided not to include it for some reason). Nevertheless, it was originally touted in press releases that it would have commentary that I was looking forward to hearing.

After that, the extras a excellent and the movie looks great. But someone at Warner Home Video needs to have a reprimanding! :)