So what's the effect of watching it 20 years later?
I'll say this much: it's definitely the most interesting movie ever made by a director allowed the artistic freedom to crawl so far into his own head, his movies emerged as his own little snow globes..........only vaguely resembling real life.........sort of like the last dream you had after a pepperoni pizza........
Supposedly taking place in New York City, it's a New York re-created, like "Full Metal Jacket"s Vietnam. completely in England, which Kubrick never strayed from throughout his hermetic adult career.........
In this regard, Kubrick's become just like his Monolith-wielding aliens from "2001".......he fashions his very own New York for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to frolic in..... much in the same way the aliens conjured up that 18th century bedroom for Keir Dullea to age, die and convert to a jumbo embryo.....
Sex lies at the heart of this movie, even though in Kubrick's snow-globe New York, sex is either imaginary (for Kidman's would-be nympho), or non-existent (for Cruise's would-be adulterer) or as mechanical as farm machinery (for Kubrick's creepy costumed orgy-of-the-week club.....)
Kidman's wet dream about boffing a Navy officer sends a repressed, frustrated Cruise out into the fake NYC streets...........where he ends up crashing a strictly One-Percenter sex club, where the crowd behaves like heavily disguised extras waiting for Vincent Price and Roger Corman to show up and tell 'em what do do.
But who they get is Kubrick......who has them joylessly hump like feral dogs and then threaten Cruise with the pretty much the same rules that govern Brad Pitt and Fight Club........
Kubrick toys with the idea of making this part of the film a half-assed paranoid thriller.....implying that these uppercrust Halloweenies are murderous, all-knowing and all-powerful........"toys" becomes the operative verb here.....given this whole movie takes place deep, deep in Kubrick's psyche, even he's not entirely sure what's going on......
And fittingly, the film winds up in a Christmas-festooned toy store, where a chastened, sadder but wiser Cruise and Kidman resolve to calm their anxieties with a good solid roll in the hay.......which come to think of it, isn't much different from how a Hallmark Christmas movie ends.......minus the roll in the hay......
I deliberately didn't elaborate on the joys of watching the supporting actors who benefit from Kubrick stretching out their sequences into practically self-contained mini-movies........I'll let you savor this bunch yourselves........including Sky du Mont (Kidman's slimy dance partner), Sydney Pollack (the Big Wheel Who Knows All, if you believe him), Rade Serbedzija (the bonkers costume shop owner) and Alan Cumming ( the fey hotel clerk).........so much fun to watch, you don't mind Kubrick using them like the nutball creatures who pop up in "Alice In Wonderland"....
Very very few directors ever got the chance to indulge themselves like Stanley Kubrick, to make movies so completely untethered from reality......in essence, waking dreams......
Which makes it pointless to rate the individual merits of "Eyes Wide Shut".....to try to establish what's good or bad about it. You might as well try to review your own dreams. Of course they're crazy.......they're dreams.
For wide-awake dreamer Stanley Kubrick, 3 stars (***) at the very least. Cause even if I've no idea if it's any good, I know you can't do anything but watch it with your eyes wide open, mesmerized.......and damn, that makes it good enough for BQ.
In this regard, Kubrick's become just like his Monolith-wielding aliens from "2001".......he fashions his very own New York for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to frolic in..... much in the same way the aliens conjured up that 18th century bedroom for Keir Dullea to age, die and convert to a jumbo embryo.....
Kidman's wet dream about boffing a Navy officer sends a repressed, frustrated Cruise out into the fake NYC streets...........where he ends up crashing a strictly One-Percenter sex club, where the crowd behaves like heavily disguised extras waiting for Vincent Price and Roger Corman to show up and tell 'em what do do.
Kubrick toys with the idea of making this part of the film a half-assed paranoid thriller.....implying that these uppercrust Halloweenies are murderous, all-knowing and all-powerful........"toys" becomes the operative verb here.....given this whole movie takes place deep, deep in Kubrick's psyche, even he's not entirely sure what's going on......
Very very few directors ever got the chance to indulge themselves like Stanley Kubrick, to make movies so completely untethered from reality......in essence, waking dreams......
For wide-awake dreamer Stanley Kubrick, 3 stars (***) at the very least. Cause even if I've no idea if it's any good, I know you can't do anything but watch it with your eyes wide open, mesmerized.......and damn, that makes it good enough for BQ.
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