Eyes Wide Shut

Year: 1999
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Genre: Drama: Mystery

I wasn't sure what to expect when watching Eyes Wide Shut. At over 2 hours long I thought it must be some sort of twisted epic... some sort of exciting sensual ride which I would emerge confused from. What the movie actually is is a pretty straight forward dramatic mystery. While I'm sure it titillated and disturbed audiences to me it seemed a rather dull exercise. Or, perhaps a very grandiose attempt to tell a simple story.

That doesn't mean I don't like it. In Eyes Wide Shut the main character is having a nice married life with a young daughter. However, things change as one night she reveals how much she had desired to cheat on him once, but didn't. The thought festers in his mind as he obsesses on it throughout the day. He comes across an old friend of his who inadvertently lets him in on a very secretive party he will be at. For some reason, this becomes the main character's obsession - to break into this party.

From then on things get all mysterious and creepy about the party and what happens to those outsiders who infiltrate it. Personally I don't quite get what the point of the story was. It all comes to pass one way or another and we are left back in the very plain husband and wife world. What was the point of showing such grandiose things? Why all the decadence and secrecy for something which we will never truly know? Maybe that's the point of it, but it just seemed to end on a very dull note.

Still, the characters are compelling and I was drawn into seeing what would happen. It's an okay film but not really worth watching unless you're having a Kubrick-athon or have read the novella it was based off (Traumnovelle).