When Tom Cruise was forged as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic within the 1989 biographical drama movie Born on the Fourth of July, Cruise stated that the function marked his first critical take a look at as an actor, and he delivered an Oscar-worthy efficiency. The following most critical take a look at got here a decade later, when he starred alongside then-wife Nicole Kidman in Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 erotic thriller psychological drama movie Eyes Large Shut, wherein he performs Dr. Invoice Harford, a seemingly fortunately married and profitable New York physician who, after being pushed to jealousy by his spouse, Kidman’s Alice, embarks on an prolonged nighttime odyssey of confusion and sexual exploration that turns right into a nightmare.
Cruise’s casting in Eyes Large Shut was a stroke of genius by Kubrick, whose notoriously methodical directorial strategy required Cruise and Kidman to be current for over 15 months of filming. Eyes Large Shut utterly subverts Cruise’s heroic display screen persona and intercourse enchantment by frequently putting Invoice in more and more weird sexual conditions, all of which finish in frustration. Whereas the real-life marital intimacy that Cruise and Kidman delivered to the movie was one of many predominant promoting factors for Eyes Large Shut, the movie was most criticized on the time of its launch for a perceived lack of sexual chemistry between them. Just like the movie as a complete, the scenes between Cruise and Kidman are most fascinating and telling on reflection, particularly within the context of their 2001 divorce.
When Eyes Large Shut was launched theatrically in 1999, roughly 4 months after Kubrick’s dying, audiences and critics responded with a combination of confusion and muted reward. Practically 25 years later, Eyes Large Shut is extensively thought of to be Kubrick’s final masterpiece, whereas Cruise’s efficiency is considered as being among the best of his profession. Certainly, because the reception for Eyes Large Shut has steadily improved over time, one can nearly really feel the presence of Kubrick playfully teasing the options to the movie’s varied underlying mysteries, that are extra elusive and tantalizing than ever.
An Countless Evening’s Journey Into Fantasy and Worry
Eyes Large Shut is essentially a psychological thriller whose surrealist erotic fantasy components stay firmly rooted in actuality. What begins as a examine of a stalled marriage, between Tom Cruise’s Invoice and Nicole Kidman’s Alice, turns into an intense examination of sexual jealousy by a sequence of interlocking occasions that conspire to make Invoice query his sanity. Whereas every of those occasions appears fully believable and relatable by itself, they collectively type a diabolical development by which Invoice and the viewers see proof of conspiracy and homicide.
Because the movie opens, Invoice and Alice attend a Christmas get together on the lavish residence of one in all Invoice’s sufferers, Victor Ziegler, performed by Sydney Pollack. On the get together, Alice is approached by a good-looking older Hungarian man who makes an attempt to seduce her, whereas Invoice flirts with two fashions, till he is known as away to assist Victor cope with a younger lady who overdosed after having intercourse with him. Invoice additionally has an opportunity reunion with Nick Nightingale, a pianist who attended medical college with Invoice.
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The triggering scene in Eyes Large Shut occurs the next night time in Invoice and Alice’s bed room, the place Alice confesses her fantasy of a good-looking naval officer whom she noticed the earlier 12 months when Invoice and Alice had been on trip. Ignited by jealousy and haunted by persistent imagined visions of Alice having intercourse with the naval officer, Invoice units off right into a seemingly infinite New York night time, wherein Invoice more and more indulges the hazard and pleasure of defying societal norms and embracing immorality.
That is most clearly embodied within the movie’s most controversial scene, wherein, after convincing Nightingale to disclose the existence and site of the masked orgy of a secret society at a secluded mansion, a masked Invoice visits the mansion, the place he witnesses varied rituals and sexual acts earlier than he is unmasked. What might have been an unintentionally hilarious scene, with the garish costumes and occultist music, as an alternative highlights the horrifying extent to which Invoice has entered a sexual abyss, although Invoice by no means really has intercourse within the movie. Certainly, a working joke in Eyes Large Shut is that whereas nearly each character whom Invoice encounters within the movie displays a point of sexual attraction to him, he does not get any satisfaction.
Tom Cruise’s 2001 Psychological Thriller Is an Wonderful Companion Piece To ‘Eyes Large Shut’
By means of its exploration of the shifting notion of actuality, Eyes Large Shut resembles Tom Cruise’s 2001 psychological thriller movie Vanilla Sky, wherein Cruise performs David Aames, a hedonistic New York playboy whose carefree way of life is totally upended after the good-looking David is severely disfigured in a automotive crash. Like Invoice Harford in Eyes Large Shut, David’s wrestle to tell apart between fantasy and actuality leads him to query the validity of his very existence. Simply as Eyes Large Shut places Invoice within the place of getting to distinguish between actuality and his unconscious instincts, David finds himself unable to belief his eyes and ideas amid compelling proof that his world is the product of his creativeness.
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Invoice and David each uncover that wish-fulfillment fantasies typically have horrific penalties. For David, this pertains to cryonic suspension and the belief that the idyllic world that David has inhabited since leaving actuality is managed by his lucid dream state. Whereas Invoice is ultimately dissuaded from investigating the key society additional by worry and intimidation, David, after discovering the fact of his existence, decides to pursue immortality in a world the place everybody and all the things he beloved in his earlier life is gone.
‘Eyes Large Shut’ Has To Be Seen Extra Than As soon as
Eyes Large Shut endures as a spellbinding thriller wherein the viewers is completely aligned with Tom Cruise’s Invoice Harford in Invoice’s determined try to use logic to the nightmarish occasions that he experiences all through the movie. Invoice, just like the viewers, is very suspicious that his previous good friend, Nick Nightingale, has been kidnapped and murdered for the crime of giving Invoice admittance to the masked orgy on the mansion. He additionally suspects that the younger lady who overdosed at Victor Ziegler’s Christmas get together was additionally murdered for aiding him on the mansion.
Invoice shares these suspicions with the highly effective Victor in a scene wherein all the things he says to Invoice has a twin that means. Victor tells Invoice that Nightingale left New York safely and is presumably again house together with his household, whereas the drug-addicted lady died from her dependancy, because the police apparently concluded. This sounds affordable sufficient to Invoice, simply because it did to audiences when Eyes Large Shut was launched in 1999. Nevertheless, almost 25 years later, critical doubts exist. Certainly, whereas Nightingale’s standing can seemingly be simply verified, with only a cellphone name, what Victor appears to be actually telling Invoice on this scene seems tantamount to a final pleasant warning for him to neglect all the things he is seen and cease asking questions. Eyes Large Shut is accessible to hire on Apple TV+.