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Eyes Wide Shut [1999]
from Warner Home Video
starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Madison Eginton, Jackie Sawiris, Sydney Pollack
directed by Stanley Kubrick

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

Visually beautiful, Stanley Kubrick's last completed film Eyes Wide Shut blends the sinister, the sensual and the clinical in a combination that is rather too personal and idiosyncratic to be entirely successful as the final statement about gender and sexuality he intended it to be. Adapted by Frederick Raphael from the Dream Story of Freud's friend Schnitzler, it shows a young successful couple confront the dangers that lurk beyond monogamy; Nicole Kidman's Alice does little more than fantasise, flirt and dream, but even this causes guilt and pain. Doctor Bill (Tom Cruise) does rather more--he visits a whore, crashes an orgy and continues to ask questions when warned off; if no disaster ensues, and it is possible that two people die as a result, it is only luck that averts it.

Much of the best of what is here is to be found in occasional moments of stillness--Cruise walking through a morgue--or wild comedy--Cruise's attempt to hire a costume in the middle of the night interrupts major shenanigans at the fancy-dress shop. Cruise and Kidman do what they can with material that never means as much as it aspires to, and the standout performance is Sydney Pollack's, as a worldly wise client.

On the DVD: Eyes Wide Shut on DVD is presented in lavish Dolby Sound that makes the most of the obsessive Ligeti piano piece and Shostakovich waltz that dominate the score, and in the 1.33:1 ratio that was Kubrick's considered choice. It has subtitles in English, Arabic, Bulgarian and Rumanian, two TV spots and informative interviews with Kidman and Cruise, as well as with Steven Spielberg, to whom Kubrick had talked at length about his artistic intentions. --Roz Kaveney

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

• Not completed
  What other reviewers seem to be forgetting is that Stanley Kubrick died during the making of this film, and therefore it is not complete. Having viewed this film several times, i admit that it is certainly his worst film - but that is only because Kubrick never had the chance to perfect it. I would only reccomend this film to a proper Kubrick fan, no-one else would be able to appreciate it.

• Prefer the US censored version
  I own both versions of eyes wide shut and prefer the us version with the weird cloaked people blocking the eurosoftcore scenes which to me play silly. It gives it a more dreamlike nightmare atmosphere. Anyways , this would be a 5 star film but I don't think Kubrick actually finished it. It plays like a rough cut, it has very unkubrickian (is that a word) scenes. EX: Kubrick would never have had the static mask reveal at the end before the Cruise Entrance and swish pan on the mask. I also believe the film... more info

• Where Sex Belongs
  A film brilliant in its drama and humour, but most of all in its treatment of an eternal theme; it gets to the heart of this, focussing
  (a) on the impersonal power and seductiveness of sex
  and (b) on its place in a marriage where it truly belongs, though both partners are vulnerable to (a). Indeed it is not only love but also luck that keeps them where they belong.
  

• why!!!
  why was this film made!the characters are ridiculous, the plot really upsets me and just reassures me that no person can stay faithful to anyone else!!!i couldn't even stay watching til the end, i had to turn it off, i suggest people do the same!!!

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