Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
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A Manhattan doctor embarks on a night-long journey of discovery after his wife confesses to her secret fantasies.
The story
The film follows Dr. Bill Harford, a Manhattan doctor who is shaken when his wife, Alice, admits to fantasizing about another man. Following this revelation, Bill embarks on a night-long odyssey through the city's nightlife. His journey leads him to a mysterious, high-society gathering where he infiltrates a masked orgy held by a secret society. As he navigates this clandestine world, Bill must confront the complexities of his marriage and the unsettling reality of the secret societies that exist behind the veil of high-society elegance.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Dr. Bill Harford and his wife Alice live in New York City. During a Christmas party, Bill meets his former classmate Nick and encounters a woman named Mandy. The next night, Alice confesses to Bill that she has been fantasizing about a naval officer. Disturbed, Bill wanders the city, meeting a prostitute named Domino and later visiting a jazz club where Nick tells him about a secret masked ball. Bill attends the ball, where he is caught as an outsider but is saved by a masked woman. After returning home, Bill finds a sense of dread and eventually confesses his experiences to Alice. The film concludes with the couple deciding to work on their relationship. The narrative is based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella 'Dream Story', updated to 1990s New York.
- First release year
- 1999
- Runtime (minutes)
- 159
- Production countries
- United Kingdom; United States
- Original languages
- English
- Writers
- Stanley Kubrick · co-writer; Frederic Raphael · co-writer
- Cast and characters
- Tom Cruise · Bill; Nicole Kidman · Alice; Sydney Pollack · Victor Ziegler; Todd Field · Nick Nightingale; Vinessa Shaw · Domino; Julienne Davis · Mandy
- Genres
- erotic; psychological; mystery; thriller
- Themes
- marriage and sexuality; secret societies; identity; fear
- Tone and mood
- dreamlike; unsettling; erotic
- Premise and plot tags
- mystery; romance; drama
- Source material / true-story basis
- Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success, becoming Kubrick's highest-grossing film in unadjusted dollars.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 77% · scale: percentage · review count: 166; Metacritic · score: 69 · scale: 100 · review count: 34
- Awards and nominations
- Golden Globe Award · Best Original Score · nomination; César Award · Best Foreign Film · nomination; French Syndicate of Cinema Critics · Best Foreign Film · win
- Production trivia
- The film's production held the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous film shoot.; One scene of Cruise walking through a door was filmed 95 times.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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