Item detail
Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut
1999
United Kingdom
Drama
153 min
Stanley Kubrick
Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman
Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael
Stanley Kubrick
Larry Smith
Jocelyn Pook
Warner Home Video
18+
DVD
21152
1.33:1
Dolby Digital
English, Spanish
2
Stanley Kubrick La Colección
The film begins in the apartment of a wealthy, married couple, Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman), who are preparing for a Christmas party at the home of Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack), a friend and patient of Bill's. During the party, a Hungarian man (Sky du Mont) tries to seduce Alice, while two younger models try to seduce Bill. Alice and Bill both resist temptations. During the party, Bill is summoned by Ziegler to his bathroom where he finds a naked woman, Mandy (Julienne Davis), over-dosed from a speedball. Bill helps her regain consciousness and promises Victor he will not speak of the event. Bill also meets an old friend, Nick Nightingale (Todd Field), a former fellow student who dropped out of medical school and is now a pianist at the party. Nick informs Bill that he is playing at the Sonata Café.
The day after the party, Alice and Bill smoke marijuana and talk about encounters at the party. Alice confesses her feelings concerning a naval officer she saw while in Cape Cod. Because of Bill's self-assurance, out of spite she admits she was willing to abandon her future for one night with the officer. Shocked, Bill suddenly receives a telephone call summoning him to a deceased patient's home. Bill goes to the patient and the daughter, Marion (Marie Richardson), says she wants to give up her life to be with Bill. Bill resists and departs once Marion's boyfriend Carl (Thomas Gibson) arrives.
While wandering the streets, rowdy men, taking him for gay, taunt him and walk into him. A female prostitute named Domino (Vinessa Shaw) approaches Bill and solicits him. Bill accepts, but a call from Alice cuts their business after a kiss. Bill insists on paying.
He happens upon a sign outside the jazz club where Nick is piano player. As the two discuss things, Nick describes a party the night before where he is to play again tonight. Bill coerces Nick into divulging the party's requirements: a black robe with a hood, and a Venetian mask. He learns the location and the password: Fidelio.
Bill goes to the costume shop of a friend only to find it has a new owner, Mr Milich (Rade Šerbedžija). He bribes Milich to get a costume immediately.
Bill takes a cab to the party in a mansion on Long Island. What he finds inside is a hierogamy-inspired sexual ritual (orgy) involving women clad in masks and G-strings and led by an ominous man dressed and masked in red (Leon Vitali). Men and women watch, masked and clad in black robes, reminiscent of a Venetian Carnival. Nick plays the organ blindfolded. As the women rise from a circle surrounding a priest-like figure, they select men from the audience. One of the masked men stares at Bill for a short time, and a mysterious woman selects Bill and informs him that he is in danger and urges him to leave, but he refuses.
He is discovered as an outsider and forced to remove his mask. The red-robed master of ceremonies demands he disrobe, but his "punishment" is "redeemed" by the mysterious woman who tried to warn him earlier. Bill is threatened to remain quiet about what he saw or suffer, then returns home.
Bill finds Alice laughing in her sleep. After waking her, she tells him of her dream. She was having sex with other men, and she knew that Bill was watching, so she laughed at him.
The following day, Bill decides to investigate what happened. He goes to the hotel at which Nick was staying and finds from the front desk clerk that Nick has apparently been brutalized for telling Bill about the party and password, and is now gone. Bill returns the costume to the shop where another sexually charged situation involving Milich's teenage daughter (Leelee Sobieski) and two Japanese men follows. Mr. Milich also offers his daughter as a prostitute to Bill. He returns to the mansion where the orgy had taken place, but is warned off. Bill goes to Domino's apartment where he learns from her roommate that Domino received results of a blood test, which said she was HIV positive. Amanda Curran, the woman who "redeemed" Bill, is dead, ostensibly of a drug overdose behind a locked apartment door. Bill goes to the morgue and learns this woman is Mandy, whom Bill had helped to revive at Ziegler's party. He is unable to establish that the woman did die simply of a drug overdose. Bill is then called to Victor Ziegler's home, where the millionaire claims he was one of those at the ritual and that nothing further was done; according to him, Amanda was a drug-addicted prostitute and Nick was allowed to leave without further punishment. Both here and in the orgy it is implied that Ziegler was the masked man staring at Bill and that he summoned Amanda to "redeem" his friend. No evidence is presented, however, concerning the fate of Amanda and Nick, and Bill and the audience are left to decide between the explanation given to him or a possible double murder. Ziegler does warn Bill against investigating further, as some of the masked participants are said to be powerful members of society.
Bill returns home to Alice and finds the mask he wore to the party on the pillow next to her. He breaks down crying, waking Alice before confessing about his journey. While Christmas shopping later that morning, Alice and Bill reconcile and attempts to improve their marriage seem to be underway. It is also suggested that the bulk of the film was merely a dream that Bill had, although this is deliberately left ambiguous.