Eyes Wide Shut

I always wondered how demanding and stressful this movie must have been for Tom and Nicole. To be an A-list Hollywood couple playing a couple who have come to some very grave realizations about themselves all under the strain of the perfectionist Stanley Kubrick seems a very daunting task. Kudos to them as the final cut was nothing short of perfect.

Eyes Wide Shut is often looked at as a mystery. Was Dr. Harford's saving grace killed at the masquerade? Or was she a casualty of the lifestyle we saw depicted early on? Was Nick Nightingale killed? Who exactly participated in the masquerade?

I believe it was Roger Ebert who stated in his review of the film, that he would have liked an ending scene that showed Nick's body carried past Dr. Harford on a gurney through the morgue. This would imply that the film revolves around the mystery of the climatic secret society party we see in the middle of the film. It does not. At least not in my eyes. We'll get to my take....

I like to know where a screenplay originates. Jack Goes Boating (below) evolved from a stage play. Eyes Wide Shut is actually an adaptation of a novella published in 1926. The translated name of the novella is Dream Story. It is this title where we find the overall feel of the film.

Throughout the first part of the film it feels as we are watching a dream (or nightmare). Bill Harford weaves through situations and experiences that are all seemingly independent of each other. Whether it is his wife declaring she would have, "given up everything" on a vacation when her eyes fell upon a Sailor, or a dying patient's daughter making a sexual advance on him, Bill could not find solid ground during his night out.

After receiving a tip-off from Nick Nightingale, the film reaches it's apex at the masquerade party. The sounds that emulate from this mansion, and the stare given to Bill from an upstairs balcony make the party scene fall directly into the horror genre. It is the outcome of this party where viewers tend to try and "solve" the mystery of Bill's night out. This party plays no more of an important role to the plot than the prostitutes apartment, or the costume shop debacle. It was just another setting that Bill ended up at after treading out of his apartment when Alice broke the news. The party does, however, offer the most easy-way-out for Bill to seek very rationalized revenge on Alice. He does not, though, and this leads to the nature of the film.


Eyes Wide Shut, although woven like a dream, is the story of a relationship: the relationship between Alice and Bill. After staring temptation in the face and being presented with gut-wrenching realizations of the other, they are left to deliver the famous last line of the film. This last line is the culmination of the days we see during the film. Bill's continuous daydream of the sailor caressing his wife and Alice's puzzlement of what might have really happened during Bill's night out becomes irrelevant. It is comparable to any situation in which you are taken completely out of your element. Immediately after, you want nothing but normality and a return to form. While Christmas shopping with their daughter, Bill and Alice realize that after the emotional distress of the prior two days- adultery has not been committed- and it is time to go home and.......