Let’s just say this movie is responsible for me taking “Masked Orgy” off my bucket list. The Shining may be Stanley Kubrick’s only straight-up horror film, but nearly every one of his movies possesses horror or menace of one kind or another (as well as unexpected and uncomfortable humor). Eyes Wide Shut is particularly disturbing, a revealing ride through the depths of one man’s sexual psyche. After his wife (Nicole Kidman) recounts a sexual fantasy, Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) embarks on a night-long sexual odyssey that culminates in a ceremonial masked orgy where his uninvited presence is very much frowned upon.
Eyes Wide Shut received mixed reviews upon its release due to irrationally high expectations (it was Kubrick’s first film in 12 years; he died before its release) and the public’s convoluted relationship with the real-life mega-couple in the lead roles. But the film is a near-masterpiece: provocative and ominous, mysterious and thematically rich. In its depiction of wealthy Manhattanites struggling with the temptation of infidelity, it plays almost like a nightmarish (and goyish) Woody Allen drama. The orgy scene, full of dread and foreboding, is one of the strangest and most ominous scenes in cinematic history. One glaring flaw: Nicole Kidman is kind of awful in this, especially when her character smokes a joint and Kidman acts as if she just took the Brown Acid at Woodstock.
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