Legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick spent a lifetime trying to make his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, a reality. He had been struggling to make it from the moment he began making feature films, some 75 years ago. When he finally did, 25 years ago in 1999, it killed him.
The plot centres on a physician (Tom Cruise) whose wife (Nicole Kidman) reveals that she had contemplated having an affair a year earlier. He becomes obsessed with having his own sexual encounter. When he discovers an underground sex group, he attends one of their masked orgies.
Having not made a film in 12 years since Full Metal Jacket in 1987, Eyes Wide Shut was hotly anticipated. Titillated by juicy rumours in the British tabloids, critics and fans who were expecting a steamy X-rated psychological thriller were inevitably disappointed. “Eyes Wide Shut turns out to be the dirtiest movie of 1958,” quipped one critic. Wait 12 years for anything and it won’t turn out to be quite so good as you imagined.
