Tom
Cruise is up all night to get lucky.
First,
let's just point out that there's no possible way that Eyes
Wide Shut could have
met expectations for many of those who saw it. It was filmed 12 years
after Stanley Kubrick's masterful Full
Metal Jacket and was
released after his death, so everyone knew it was his last film.
Even
acknowledging that, the film is a bit of a mess. Nicole Kidman and
Tom Cruise took time away from being the world's most uninteresting
couple to play the world's most uninteresting couple in this film,
with Kidman doing what she can to show up her hubby with some really
bad overacting in the few scenes she manages to be in. It doesn't
help that she appears in most of the film either stoned or drunk, nor
does it help that the script is adamant about portraying nearly every
woman in the film as one-note temptresses.
Well,
there is that apparently pivotal argument scene early in the film
where Kidman gets to stop auditioning for the role of Catwoman
(seriously, watch her flirting at the party...so bad) and instead
gets to play the role of the stereotypical Woman Who Just Wants to
Argue. You get to marvel as she hysterically jumps to conclusions and
erratically constructs terrible strawman arguments and Cruise, as the
bored, rich doctor she's married to, plays the role of the husband
who just doesn't get what his wife's deal is.
Besides
the way the women are written in the film, which is decidedly 20th
century, the plot is pretty bad. Kidman's character had a crush on a
sailor she saw one time and thought, “Hey, if I had the chance, I'd
probably bone him.” She tells Cruise this in a ridiculously drawn
out story and gives her husband all the motivation he needs to go out
for the rest of the night and try his damndest to get laid.
Oh,
but let me save you an hour and a half...Cruise doesn't
get laid. And it's not
because he has a change of heart or realizes what a dipshit he's
being, either. It's because ridiculous circumstances conspire to
interrupt every chance that he gets to get some nookie. From timely
phone calls to positive HIV tests, everything in the world seems to
be happening only to deprive Cruise of dipping his noodle in some
random vagina.
So
what you have is basically Harold
& Kumar Cheat on Their Wives, as
Cruise's misadventures lead him to a ridiculous sex
party-slash-Freemasons meeting that derails his quest for poontang
and instead leaves him fearing for his life. Only then, when he
realizes that he almost got killed over his need to get revenge on
his wife for fantasizing about another guy, does he see that he
doesn't want to cheat on her after all and would instead like to go
do some Christmas shopping after telling her everything about his
night on the town.
 |
| "I wonder if this cloak is hiding my raging boner." |
You
also get to enjoy some extremely annoying repeated piano
accompaniment that is supposed to be minimalist and threatening and
tense, but instead is grating and unimaginative and pretentious.
Someone who liked this film would probably jump my case and talk
about all the symbolism involved. Yes, there's plenty of that.
Ominous red doors, headlines on a newspaper that say “Lucky to be
Alive,” etc. There's a lot to examine here, just as with most
Kubrick films.
That
doesn't mean that it's enjoyable entertainment, though, and a lot of
the symbolism is thrust in your face with such obvious vigor that any
interest you may have in deciphering it quickly disappears. Kubrick
films tend to be great because they work both on the surface level as
simple entertainment with a clear theme and as deeper looks into more
complex messages. This one doesn't work on that surface level, as it
just comes off as a cautionary morality tale where the lead character
gets to safely explore his wild side for a night before deciding that
nope, a boring marriage isn't so bad after all.
Grade:
D+
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