Review of Eyes Wide Shut (1999) by Ray R — 02 May 2011

This has a reputation for being a real stinker, but watching it for the first time now I wonder if perhaps people expected far too much, or it just wasn't in line with what people wanted Kubrick's last movie to be. The man was a master craftsman and in scale this is hardly 2001, but it is pretty damn good.

Granted, Cruise and Kidman put in pretty ropey performances. Criticisms that they have no chemistry don't hold water (they don't, but that's kind of the point of the movie), but they still manage to be at best stilted and wooden and at worst positively grating (Kidman's stoned/drunk acting is particularly irksome). Other than that though the film is hugely absorbing, Kubrick deploying that uncanny compositional skill he has to just take his time and draw you right into the frame, making a fairly lengthy running time fly by in something of a hypnotic daze.

If this had come at another stage in the director's career I'm sure it would have been much more highly regarded, as it is people perhaps expected him to leave behind something positively world shattering. In it's own personal way though, I think it is. He explores the themes here with as much skill as he's applied to anything he's dealt with before. The way the movie depicts the effect that the decline of physical love in a relationship can have on that relationship, and the guilt and anguish that arises from the ensuing infidelities (both real or imagined, acted on or abandoned) makes for a fascinating film.