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Eyes Wide Shut

  • Film
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
New York movies: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
New York movies: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
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Time Out says

4 out of 5 stars

At the time of its 1999 release, director Stanley Kubrick’s final film felt a bit embarrassing: hardly a worthy career swansong (as it soon turned out to be). The film follows Alice (Kidman), wife of well-to-do doctor William Harford (Cruise), who, after a swanky Manhattan party, confesses to fantasising about a naval officer. Haunted by visions of Alice with another man, William embarks on a long dark night of the soul during which he's repeatedly confronted by sexual temptation.

Nevertheless, despite its initial tepid response, the movie has grown in the intervening years. Glacially paced dialogue, faked Manhattan locations and that banging piano key all contribute to the faint, unmistakable air of a waking dream. Thematically, Kubrick was always about insiders and outsiders, and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, with its orgy passwords and Cruise-and-Kidman marital alienation, fits right in.

Joshua Rothkopf
Written by
Joshua Rothkopf

Release Details

  • Duration:159 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Stanley Kubrick
  • Screenwriter:Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael
  • Cast:
    • Rade Sherbedgia
    • Vanessa Shaw
    • Alan Cumming
    • Nicole Kidman
    • Marie Richardson
    • LeeLee Sobiesky
    • Tom Cruise
    • Sydney Pollack
    • Todd Field
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