THE AISLE SEAT - "EYES WIDE SHUT"
by Mike McGranaghan
It's been 24 hours since I saw the final film by Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut, and I'm still trying to gather my thoughts on it. On one hand, I walked out of the theater feeling massively disappointed by what I felt was a disjointed and soulless film; on the other, I haven't stopped thinking about it since, and I think I have finally realized what the story is supposed to be about. This is one of those unusual motion pictures that may warrant a recommendation for true cinema buffs looking for a hot discussion, if not for a general audience looking for a fun night at the movies.
Kubrick went to great lengths to insure that the plot of Eyes Wide Shut was not revealed prior to release. In this spirit, I will avoid specifics in capsulizing the plot, except for when it is necessary to make a point.
Tom Cruise stars as Dr. Bill Harford, and Nicole Kidman plays his wife Alice. The film begins with them attending a party at the home of one of Bill's wealthy clients. They become separated at the party; she dances and flirts with a middle-aged piece of Euro-trash while he jokes coyly with two models. (This party sequence takes up the first half-hour of this 155-minute film, and at times it seems interminable). Upon returning home, Alice makes a confession to Bill about a sexual yearning she had. He becomes obsessed and jealous, and wanders off into the night to think about what she has said.
Along the way, he encounters a disparate group of people, most of whom seem to be on the fringes of a sexual underground. They include a young prostitute and (in a scene that utterly fails in its efforts to be funny) a costume salesman who discovers his teenage daughter in a compromising position. Most disturbing is a cult of sexual deviants who wear cloaks and masks and meet in a secretive ceremony in a mansion. Bill sneaks into the ritual, is threatened, and just barely gets away.
This last scene is the centerpiece of Eyes Wide Shut, and it is admittedly unnerving (at least, it is until it hokily concludes). I think what Kubrick intended was to show that there are all kinds of sexual options around us, things that some of us may choose to experiment with. Many of these are quite disturbing, or even wrong. There is also what society considers "conventional" sex - that between a man and a woman who love each other and are united in their commitment. The Cruise character is initially content with the "conventional" until driven to obsession by his wife's confession. Could he, too, harbor thoughts of the dangerous and immoral? Beneath his professional, exacting demeanor could there be an attraction to the perverse?
It's an interesting idea but it fails for several reasons. First, the movie is too slow. I appreciate Kubrick's precision, his willingness to let a scene play out at its own pace. However, I often got the point long before the scenes ended. Many of them seemed to drag on long after their purposes had become clear. I can't remember a recent movie in which so much time was spent elaborating on things that were so immediately apparent. At times, the film seems to be playing in slow motion.
A more unpardonable sin is that Eyes Wide Shut basically relegates the Nicole Kidman character to the background after the first hour. Bill goes out and encounters all of these sexual proclivities, but we are denied detailed scenes showing how they impact his sexuality with his wife! I wanted to know how his nocturnal prowlings changed his view of his wife's fantasy. I also wanted to see the impact of these things on their marital psyche. Instead, we get a half-hearted attempt to convey understanding in the last scene, in which the characters spout off some incomprehensible psycho-babble before the picture ends with, essentially, a joke that undermines all we have just seen. Ideas this complex need to be summarized with more than just a joke that seems ripped out of American Pie.
Finally, the movie just isn't sexy. For all the sexual images it contains, there was not one single erotic moment for me. Eyes Wide Shut is already heaping critical acclaim because it is Kubrick's last film; I suspect that if this exact same film had been directed by the guy who made, say, Lake Placid, the reviews would be a lot more observant of the picture's flaws. Is the movie intriguing? To a degree, it is, simply because it is the swan song of one of our greatest directors. But the fact is that Eyes Wide Shut is a failed effort from that great director, a movie that has lots of admirable technical elements and performances, yet not enough conviction to make it fully stir the loins or the brain.
( 
out of four)
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