Eyes Wide Shut Review
by Chuck Schwartz (chuck AT crankycritic DOT com)August 1st, 1999
CrankyCritic® movie reviews: Eyes Wide Shut
Rated [R], 2 hours 40 minutes
Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman;
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael
Inspired by the novel "Traumnovelle" by Arthur Schnitzler
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
website: http://www.eyeswideshut.com
BEFORE WE BEGIN: American movie theaters will show a CGI censored
version of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. It has nothing to do with a
lack of corporate cajones on Time-Warner's part. No, the folks at the
MPAA, fearful that 65 seconds of frenetic thrusting in a simulated
sexual frenzy would warp our little minds, initially rated Kubrick's
final cut a deadly [NC-17]. To attain a commercially viable [R], a
couple of computer generated bodies, some clothed some not, were
inserted (sic) with permission of Kubrick's producer (his
sister-in-law). You try to figure out the MPAA thinking on this.
"Thrusting" is OK when it's, like, a spear through an eyeball (pick a
slice 'n' dice flick) or a fireplace poker through (and castrating) a
man's genitals (Carrie 2). But a little hererosexual ass wiggling is
verboten. Naked homosexual touchy feely and tongue entwining (Edge of
Seventeen) is OK for [R] but simulated breeder bump and grind is
perverse? Someone at the MPAA needs a reality check.
Well, you need some anecdotal background first, thoughtfully provided by
director Peter Bogdonavich whose oral history of Kubrick ran in the <a
href="http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+78135+0+wAAA+stanley%7Ekubrick" target="_blank">New York Times Magazine</a> (the link is free, but
registration is required). In it, Jerry Lewis recounts a conversation he
and Kubrick had when they were in adjoining editing suites, Kubrick
working on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lewis on something only the French
would like. Lewis said to Kubrick "You cannot polish a turd". Kubrick
responded "You can if you freeze it."
IN SHORT: A highly polished turd.
Eyes Wide Shut is visually stunning and emotionally cold. It moves as
slow as molasses, and the damn piano thumping (heard in the teevee
commercial) soundtrack is incredibly annoying. As for the performances,
my colleague, Harvey Karten, put it better than I ever could when he
wrote: "Conversations ... are almost painfully deliberate, as though
Kubrick were petitioning his audience to lean on each word as though
concocted on Mount Sinai." Cranky cannot praise or condemn the work of
Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman or Sydney Pollack because the heavy hand of
Kubrick's direction has squashed any emotional nuance they could have
delivered to the density of a black hole.
That being said, those film students inclined to see Kubrick's Eyes Wide
Shut will do so regardless of what any critic says so, in deference to
them: As with The Shining, the cinematography is outstanding. That
Kubrick intentionally shifts to a grainy look at the very end of the
flick is a symbolic move that is in keeping with the meticulous
production planning he is known for. The title of the movie itself is
itself symbolic, as researched and explained by Entertainment Tonight as
psychologically indicative of a waking dream state. Cranky's real time
experience indicates that "Eyes Wide Shut" is more indicative of his
struggle to keep his eyes open while waiting for the film to make its
point, which it does only in the final line of dialog, nine thousand
seconds or so after the initial, visual revelation that Nicole Kidman's
character is adverse to wearing underwear. By the time that final line
of dialog hit, Cranky didn't care.
Cranky writes for the people that pay cold cash for their movies, and
reports that paying full ticket price for Eyes Wide Shut would be a
waste of your money. It is definitely a waste of your time.
Dr. William Harford (Cruise) and his lovely wife Alice (Kidman) have
been invited to a Christmas party, they are not sure why, by the
fabulously wealthy Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack). At the party, Bill
sees his wife dancing way too closely with a smooth-talking Hungarian
Sandor Szavost (Sky Dumont). Alice sees her husband flirting with, and
disappearing with, models Gayle and Nuala (Louise Taylor and Stewart
Thorndike). She assumes the worst but doesn't slip off with the
Hungarian. Post party, fueled by a couple of tokes on a doobie, the
couple get into an argument about marital fidelity and Alice reveals
that, once, she thought about cheating with a naval officer she met in a
holiday hotel. Bill is shocked (Shocked! I say!) by the admission and
can't get the fantasy images (thoughtfully photographed in black and
white just in case we, the viewing audience, can't distinguish fantasy
from reality) of his wife and her naval officer out of his mind.
When presented with the opportunity to do something about it (ie. cheat
with a damn fine looking street whore, played by Vinessa Shaw, who comes
on to him after he's been assaulted by some drunken collegiates who
assume this good looking guy wandering down Christopher Street, a known
gay area in New York, is gay), he doesn't. In short order, Bill is
tempted by a teen slut (Leelee Sobieski); crashes a super-exclusive orgy
in which the emotionally vacant super-rich, all in masks and robes,
watch the hired help copulate; is threatened with great bodily harm for
crashing said orgy; is again tempted by the teen slut, this time with
full encouragement of said slut's father (Rade Sherbedgia). Then his
friends get beat up and various acquaintances start dying, all in a
24-hour period. It may be coincidence. It may be conspiracy. It may be
someone screwing with his brain. Regardless, It is boring as hell.
Cranky wonders if Kubrick is cackling from the Great Beyond at the
critics who have missed the point of Eyes Wide Shut; that point being
you can read way too much into any situation and blow your perceptions
up into a delusion bordering on the epic. Having worked on big budget
films, I report from experience that no professional filmmaker that I've
met intentionally sets out to make a bad film but, based on what I saw
at the screening, I'm wondering if Kubrick did just that. In his best
work (Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The
Shining) he pushed genre and expectations far beyond any previously
conceived boundary. So why not create a plodding, tedious, emotionally
tight-fisted two hour and forty minute endurance test just to see how
many film critics would write knee jerk acclamations based on
non-existent symbolism they interpret to have a greater meaning? Having
set the high bar for political satire, SF, horror and war flicks, why
not out do Ed Wood? It's the only explanation that makes sense.
Wood's final film masterpiece, I Woke Up Early The Day I Died, starring
Billy Zane, will probably take the title back when it's released in
September.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were
Cranky able to set his own price to Eyes Wide Shut, he would have
paid...
$0.00
For what you would spend on a pair of tickets, you could buy legitimate
Kubrick masterpieces on VHS
Cranky Critic® is a Registered Trademark of, and Copyright © by, Chuck
Schwartz. All Rights Reserved.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
