★★★★★ 5
Kubrick’s revelatory swan song is full of hidden meanings
An underrated masterpiece, Eyes Wide Shut is a gem layered with meaning. A semi-autobiographical sensibility permeates given the parameters of its production. It’s immaculately shot, edited and designed and offers two central performances from the then married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Given its theme, their subsequent divorce reflects back on the choppy waters faced by their characters Bill and Alice Harford.
The result is a dream logic of coincidences that ensnare a married couple in self doubt and sexual angst. They live a fairly privileged life in a Manhattan apartment but after a Christmas party at a huge mansion owned by an elite acquaintance, the relationship begins to unravel when both are confronted by the consequences of their projected desires. This prompts the husband Bill on an odyssey through a night time New York and an escalating series of encounters as his wife’s confession about an infatuation with another man eats away at his own inner, unfulfilled desires.
It’s a dark/light solstice of a film, as man and wife chase fatalistic hidden desire, their marriage subject to dissolution and they plunge through a dark night of the soul and emerge into a morning of earnest confession and much soul searching.
In the end, it’s a fascinating watch. Quite revelatory given my initial reception to it many decades ago. But that’s Kubrick for you. It’s essential to revisit his films. Beautifully presented in 4K by Criterion, it asks us to take ownership of our inner desires, to confront them with honesty and discern what is merely a dream from the reality around us. And no, it’s not the erotic thriller the marketing promised. Another desire thwarted or a deliberate obfuscation of the intense psychological drama it really was?
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Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2026
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