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Directed by – Stanley Kubrick
Starring – Tom Cruise (William ‘Bill' Harford), Nicole Kidman (Alice Harford), Sydney Pollack (Victor Ziegler), Todd Field (Nick Nightingale) Marie Richardson (Marion Nathanson), Rade Sherbedgia (Mr Milich), Madison Eginton (Helena Harford)
Length – 153 minutes
Cert – 18 / R (originally NC-17)

Despite a very long, well-publicized shoot in London, England (15 months, with the whole production itself lasting two-and-a-half years), no one seemed to know what Eyes Wide Shut was actually about. With Stanley Kubrick amazingly left to do as he pleased, it's believed that not even Warner Bros. knew what the film was about, having not read the script. Co-writer Frederic Raphael revealed that he had not met with Warner executives, and wasn't invited to any screenings or premieres. Warner hadn't even seen the dailies till it came to editing the film.

This is hard to believe given how secrets are leaked today (sometimes purposely), often prematurely ejaculated all over the Internet, and swallowed by gossip hungry readers thirsting for the latest bit of juice. The oft-printed, possible red herring, was that Cruise and Kidman were playing a pair of married psychologists, both having affairs with their patients. The truth was far more boring.

Set in New York, Cruise is a successful doctor, William "Bill" Harford. Kidman is his wife Alice, an art curator who is currently out of a job. One night Bill and Alice argue about the feelings men and women have towards love and sex, with Bill saying that he's never been concerned that Alice would ever cheat on him. Alice laughs and then describes how she was willing to throw away everything for a moment of passion with a navel officer she once met last summer. Right after this revelation, the phone rings, with news that sets Bill off on a jealous spiral, as he experiences a night unlike any other... though one that is probably quite normal for the majority of married senators.

The film is credited as being inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story (Traumnovelle). Kubrick had acquired the rights and first considered adapting it in the early 1970s, but just never got around to it.

Close to, and during its eventual release, controversy was spreading that the film was simply all sex and orgies. This immediately cast a shadow over whether it was actually any good. The theme of sex is prevalent throughout, but if you're just after people bonking then you're better off subscribing to red-hot amateurs. Eyes Wide Shut takes more of a psychological look into marriage, sexual paranoia, deception and jealousy.

With the Harfords attending a Christmas party, the film begins as if stuck in a state of normalcy, with boring, stilted dialogue, and outwardly this seems to play with a knowing deliberateness to it all. Around 25 minutes in, Alice turns Bill's world upside-down, and halfway through events suddenly reach a devastating high - more so due to Kubrick purposely opening the film on the safe side of expectancy.

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