This summer, two auteur directors, Stanley Kubrick and Spike Lee (Summer of Sam), take on the theme of marital discontent and sexual disloyalty. Neither attempt is really satisfying in creating an emotionally engaging metaphor for how we overcome the grip of sexual fantasy or obsession.

To us, Eyes Wide Shut brought greater disappointment. As cold, cynical, and implausible, it failed to capitalize upon its bizarre mystery and deeper human issues. We can stipulate that Kubrick’s oxymoronic world aims to warn us against taking our mates and relationships for granted. On the surface Eyes Wide Shut offers a hopeful resolution, but at its core it offers nothing except "Let’s fuck and move on".

Maybe at a time when Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) wrote the novella this film was based on, its themes and scenes were revolutionary or challenging to cultural sensibilities. Similarly, the effect may have been avant-garde if these literary themes were brought to the screen in the 60's. The hype and mystery surrounding the film promised hot stuff between the principle actors, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Such was just not present except in one very minor mirror scene.

The flap over the NC-17 versus R rating (reportedly because of the "orgy" scenes, which whatever they showed or didn’t show, were static and boring) seems a kind of reverse marketing ploy, sort of like having the Christian righteous right complaining about a bad film with no real appeal which ultimately has the effect of increasing its box office returns.

Not many teenagers are going to be interested in this film except that it is a kind of controversial, forbidden fruit. With or without heads blocking undulating hips (apparently added to get the R rating), this movie’s availability to teens should not be a very important issue.

The long "orgy" scene is really a parody of a black Mass with weird music and booming noises when a high priest dressed in red cape bangs a stick on the ground. At the start, everyone else wears a black cape and a Mardi Gras like mask. As the events evolve (ever so slowly), even the naked beauty queens keep their masks on. It may have seemed risqué, bold, or sexy in the 60’s, but now it seems ridiculous.

For Bill (Tom Cruise), attending this secret orgy was supposed to be the source of great danger because he didn’t have proper authorization. One young lovely warns him, talking from behind her static mask, that he and she are in danger of dying if he does not flee. Yet there was no blood, sadism, or anything else to make this party seem like anything other than a highly stylized, harmless enough diversion for a bunch of old guys who chose it over Viagra to get "it" up with expensive hookers.

And how about the "artistic" follow up with a coffee shop into which our man retreats while in the background chimes Mozart’s Requiem? Kubrick goes on to signal peril and danger with a two or three note piano piece which had the distracting effect of wet chalk on a board. And if we buy the danger, our Doctor then returns to the mansion of the orgy after suspecting they have killed a friend and may kill the young lovely who warned him. He goes to the gates, is spied by a camera, and then receives an incriminating note telling him to stop investigating. Oooooh.

The theme, worthy of better treatment, revolves around the difficulties of a couple with a child in a stable marriage of nearly a decade. To mar the vision of their idyllic upper crust life, attractions to others spring up, if only in fantasy.

While this issue may often arise to challenge seemingly perfect marriages, to us, Kubrick’s characters are utterly disappointing with their lack of intimacy and integrity. Alice (Nicole Kidman) surrendered to her frustrations to the extent that she could no longer muster the love or the clarity to show her husband that, for whatever reason, she’s hurting inside. Instead, she castrates him with her dreams and fantasies. Her husband on the other hand, after nearly losing his life in pursuit of retaliation, comes home into her arms and fails to put events in proper perspective. As tainted or troubled as his wife’s love for him may be, she is still there, in their bed, in their home, trying to love him as best she can. A man who ignores that fortune in order to continue down a path of apparent suicide seemed unrealistic to us. We don’t deny that some people may live this reality, but we hoped for a deeper exploration and more hopeful resolution.

Eyes Wide Shut Revisited

As critical as we were of this movie, we must praise it for giving us a foundation for profound conversation. Time and time again, we’ve come back to the challenges of Bill and Alice Hartford, finding in them the confirmation of our views on marital intimacy.

Apparently, Mr. Kubrick intended to explore a husband’s denial of the power and complexity of female sexuality. In this case, the husband is not only out of touch with his own desires and passions, but he underestimates the breadth and depth of his wife's fantasy life.

We are still trying to imagine what it would mean for either of us to confess to the other that we had a sexual temptation so strong that we nearly sacrificed our whole relationship for it.

As an exploration of an unacknowledged and perhaps even murky unconscious reaction to Bill’s wife’s tale of near betrayal, the unfocused lighting creates a sense of living in a dream.

Even so, Bill’s many near brushes with sexual adventure as a sort of retaliation against his wife’s attack are dated and stylized. The whole thing smacks of symbols for desire and passion rather than the deeper reality. As such, the film suffers from obtuseness and abstraction.

We still think the movie failed to recognize the Hartfords’ inability to synchronize with their deeper discontents, which far transcend sexual function. Their forays into temptation and fantasy seemed to us like a person stumbling through a dark room rather than turning on the light. In both cases when the troubling issue is brought up and discussed, the Hartfords are in some state of intoxication. First, at the reception, they are drunk. Later at home, they smoke marijuana. Maybe, they are no longer capable of escaping the darkness of limited sensual joys and learning to share their souls. The cure and resolution that the story embraces suggests that just might be the reality of their lives.