Eyes Wide Shut

Welcome back. Since you're here again I'm going to assume you have a vendetta against me. We'll deal with that later.

Last we left this CRUISE machine, Tom had a huge hit with Jerry Maguire, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and adding to his growing list of $100 million box office hits. Tom Cruise: Movie Star was at peak Movie Star.

And then he went absent from the screen for three years. Why is it the worlds biggest movie star would disappear from movies at the height of his fame?

Stanley. Fucking. Kubrick.

Our boy Tom over here not only stopped everything to work with the legendary director, he dragged his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman, to join him.

Spoilers for Eyes Wide Shut to follow.

There are many, many interesting things about Eyes Wide Shut. And there are many, many articles about why it's so interesting. Its absurdly long production time of at least 15 months, its wildly overhyped sexual themes and nudity, where it stands in Kubrick's career.  But to me, the most interesting thing about Eyes Wide Shut is that it stars Tom Cruise.

Now wait a minute. I'm not saying that Cruise is the best thing about Eyes Wide Shut (I think Kidman is fucking dynamite in her much smaller role), but the mere fact that Tom Cruise starred in a Stanley Kubrick at the absolute hottest moment in his already hot career is insane.

But then again, if you look back at his career thus far and the directors he's already worked with, it's a pretty stacked list. Tony and Ridley Scott. Francis Ford Coppola. Martin Scorsese. Oliver Stone. Ron Howard. Cameron Crowe. Sydney Pollock (also his Eyes Wide Shut co-star). Rob Reiner. Barry Levinson. Brian DePalma. And that was all before Michael Mann, Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ben Stiller, Edward Zwick, Robert Redford, Brad Bird, James Mangold, and Christopher McQuarrie.

Tom Cruise likes working with good directors. So of course he wanted to work with Stanley Kubrick.

It's just so interesting that it happened after Jerry Maguire. As I said, Cruise was at peak Movie Star after that. And in Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick takes that movie star power and flips it on its head.

The film starts with Cruise's character William Harford, a hotshot doctor (!) living in New York with his young daughter and wife Alice, played by Kidman, as the couple make their way through a high society party of the tallest order.

Cruise is immediately captivating, carrying an authoritative yet gentle demeanor. Alice is, simply put, stunning, and William is very aware of this, adding to his already strong confidence. The scene takes its time, giving quick conversations here and there with the host,  played by Sydney Pollock, and other various guests. Even in their brief interactions it's clear how insincere everyone is to one another,  only there to retain status more than relationships. This is especially true of Harford, only talking to people like they are patients rather than friends.

What I love about this choice is that it makes Tom Cruise unrelatable right out of the gate. Now I know not all of Cruise's characters are relatable (I'm pretty sure I'll never know what its like to fly jets or to defy death 7 times or drink human blood), but in general, audiences were used to Tom Cruise being the hero of the movie. So when Kubrick gives us a hallow and seemingly fake lead character played by Tom Cruise: Movie Star, it's jarring. 

But it's also great, and Cruise shows no ego here, as his character gets dunked on left and right in the film, and almost always by women. Though it's his wife Alice who dunks on him the hardest.

A night or two after the party, William and Alice decide to smoke a joint before bed. Once both are properly high, Alice questions her husbands whereabouts at the party (she saw him chatting up two models before he was whisked away to help the party's host with a problem, which she did not see). William is in a tough spot, he can't tell Alice what he helped with (an overdosed hooker), and he also can't deny he was talking with models.

And this scene, which basically sets the rest of the movie in motion, is a doozy. Kidman is vicious as Alice, tearing into William and his idiotic beliefs that women just don't think like men do. "Oh if you men only knew!", Alice screams. William is eviscerated. It's a brutal discussion between the couple, and both stars are incredible, with their real life marriage adding extra weight to the conversation.

The rest of the movie follows William after he storms out of the house and begins a bizarre night long journey that includes him having a drink with an old college buddy, getting awkwardly hit on by a paitent right after her father died, flashing his medical license like a badge at least 3 times and ends with him getting kicked out of a prestigious orgy (!). Like any Kubrick flick, the film is beautifully made, impossibly bizarre, and not easily forgotten. But above all, the director gets an incredible performance out of Cruise, allowing the audience to see the actor in a way they've never seen him before; small and weak as opposed to the Hollywood leading man. 

Eyes Wide Shut opened in June of 1999, almost 3 full years after Jerry Maguire. The film grossed $55 million at the domestic box office, a sum that at the time was deemed disappointing given the movie's enormous hype before its release, and effectively ending Cruise's streak of $100 million hits. Critics weren't initially enamored with the film either, but again, like any Kubrick film, seems to have gained prestige as time passed.

Eyes Wide Shut wasn't the hit everyone thought it could be, but Kubrick was never one to cater to the mainstream. As I said, time has been kind to the movie, and it features one of the most unique performances that Cruise has given during one of the most unique times in his career. 


Next up on this Cruise control is the three hour frog falling masterpiece, Magnolia. 

Until then, be cool. And remember, I like movies.