Eyes Wide Shut

1999 Drama

The final work of legendary director Stanley Kubrick, who died within a week of completing the edit, stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, at the time Hollywood's most bankable celebrity couple, and was shot on a open-ended schedule (finally totaling over 400 days), with closed sets in London standing in for New York City. Cruise and Kidman play William and Alice Harford, a physician and a gallery manager who are wealthy, successful, and travel in a sophisticated social circle; however, a certain amount of decadence crosses their paths on occasion, and a visit to a formal-dress party leads them into sexual temptation when William is drafted into helping a beautiful girl who has overdosed on drugs while Alice is charmed by a man bent on seduction. While neither William and Alice act on their adulterous impulses, once the issue has been brought into the open, it begins a dangerous season of erotic gamesmanship for the couple, with William in particular openly confronting his desire for new sexual experiences. What didn't make the final cut of Eyes Wide Shut may have been as fascinating as what finally appeared on screen: Harvey Keitel was replaced almost immediately by Sydney Pollack, while Jennifer Jason Leigh was replaced by Marie Richardson after she had shot all her scenes and left town. more..

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman,Sydney Pollack, Marie Richardson,Todd Field

Reviews

  • A precisely modulated and mostly mesmerizing 2¾-hour suspense movie, in part because it's one of the most bravely disturbing screen works ever attempted about thoughts withheld by even the most devoted marriage partners and the ramifications of voicing them.

    Mike Clark - USA Today

    19 January 2013

  • Kubrick left one more brilliantly provocative tour de force as his epitaph.

    Elvis Mitchell - The New York Times

    19 January 2013

  • The reconciliation at the end of the film is the one scene that doesn't work; a film that intrigues us because of its loose ends shouldn't try to tidy up.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    19 January 2013

  • Makes its strongest impression not with dialogue but with virtuoso visual work.... when you work with Kubrick, it's always the director, never the actors, who is the real star. That can lead a film up or down or, as it does here, in both directions at the same time.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    19 January 2013

  • It's painstakingly paced, but it's also entrancing.

    Desson Thomson - The Washington Post

    19 January 2013

Awards

  • Best DVD Collection

    Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (2012)

  • Favorite Actress - Drama/Romance

    Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (2000)

  • Best American Film (Bedste amerikanske film)

    Bodil Awards (2000)

     
  • Best Cinematography

    Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (2000)

     
  • Best Foreign Film (Melhor Filme Estrangeiro)

    Cinema Brazil Grand Prize (2000)