Date: 08/03/2020
Title: Eyes Wide Shut
Location: Enzian Theater
It has been around twenty years since I last saw Eyes Wide Shut which was back in 1999 when it came out. I remember going to the theater back then to see this and it was for the same reason I think many guys went because Nicole Kidman gets naked and there’s a secret sex cult in the film. That is what I recall remembering about the film and now revisiting it at Enzian during their Stanley Kubrick week is yup it has a lot of nudity in it though this time around decades have passed and with time now able to see beyond it just being about naked women. How Tom Cruise reacts to Nicole Kidman’s story of the navy man at the hotel and how she talks about the way women are seen by many men. Kubrick brings a stylizing and gravitas to the film that heightens the film to keep it from being in the “skinamax” lineup of straight to cable soft porn titles. Also at 159 minutes it is a rather long movie if your just looking for some exposed women, what was I thinking when I was younger? It is very long though it never feels weighted down or sluggish as slowly more and more is unraveled, though one of the audience members when we were leaving told his friend that it was so long he felt that it was Christmas time by now. I would say though it still is not one of my favorite Kubrick films, I am sure if I had the time to sit through it a half dozen more times to pick up on little nuisances and themes it may elevate it. I think it’s a movie that many going into long term relationships or have been in should experience together to understand how the other may be feeling or how one slip can come back around later to do more damage.
