Eyes Wide Shut - 9/10
There's a lot here. Like most art worth discussion is hands you very little and expects you to find meaning.
The score is outstanding. the way to piano is used to create tension is legitimately masterful. it may be the films the greatest strength because the tension is immense and its all driven through the score. this of course is a reliable cnstant through the bulk of Kubrick's work and its front and center here.
another constant is the frame compositions. in a lot of ways Kubrick frames his scenes to be murals. there's a good ammount of steady cam thats used to create satisfying one shots in some pretty tight spaces that i really appreciated.
one thing i found interesting was in the bed room scenes Kidmans character was shot hand held and there was an effort to follow her movements to keep her head in center frame through a medium close up shot. this was an active choice but one i dont fully understand. it added a chaos to the framing that makes everything seems unhinged. the why i dunno but the feeling it created i do understand.
there was one scene however very early in the film where kidman was shot hand held and cruise was shot steady which is find but they were mic'd different so kidmans half contained the acoustics of the room and cruise did not. i dont think that result was deliberate. the scene played oddly in what felt like an unintended way.
the acting from the films leads leave a lot to be desired. kidman and cruise have shockingly little on screen chemestry and it burdens the films primary throughline. cruise's performnce is reasonably strong when his wife isnt on screen however kidmans is never particularly revelatory. shes a fine actess but not here. perhaps not all of it falls to them however as the dialogue isnt written particularly well but i do have to imagine others could have gotten more out of the material mediocre though it was.
film itself is superbly eerie especially now in a time where we know with complete certainty that these satanic sex cults are very real and very much enacted by the cultural elites. and this is magnified by the notion that Kubrick had been high enough in society long enough to know for certain they were true as well. but thats obviously the surface observation and isnt what the film is actually about.
the film delves into sexual anonymity. nearly every scene has sexual context, even if its just undertones and this plays very well. even in the early scenes this sexual tension plagues the viewer. hauntingly. this is juxtaposed with the window dressing of christmas. silently loarding in the background. and thats a crucial factor.
in the background of the world is christmas. the shiny happy beacon of goodness...but its superficial. in the background of the mind is sexual deviantcy. and its much much louder.
this split comes to head in the final scene where the couple goes christmas shopping and come to terms to live with their "eyes wide shut" and kidmans final line that closes the film. "we need to fuck." they agree to move forward together, knowing what lurks beneath each of them, and continue in the superficial reality.
that resolution is both dark and honest. i dont think id have accepted any other ending.