Rating of
4/4
Never open them.
memento_mori - wrote on 09/10/13
I guess you could say that audiences have their eyes wide shut (*BADUM TSS*) to the brilliance of one of this director's best works.
Stanley Kubrick was an odd man, everyone could testify to that. He made unorthodox directing decisions, created very polarizing atmospheres and amazed filmgoers and critics throughout the ages. But, when his last film to date was released after his death, the reaction was very two-sided.
This film is regarded as one of those 'love it or hate it' type of movies. There's no in-between, you understand it or you don't. Although not his best, I think it is one of Kubrick's best and indisputably his most overlooked work.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (a married acting couple at the time) portray two very different characters bonded by the succession of love and marriage. But they are two very different people at heart.
Tom Cruise is in my eyes a better version of Nicolas Cage. Both gave amazing performances in the 90's and then descended into action movie territory.
Cruise must have been having a good year in 1999, because his performance left me floored.
His line delivery with Nicole Kidman was authentic, but mysterious. It offers the perspective of a confused man who can't even trust his wife anymore, the person he is supposed to trust most. I understood the conflict in his character and why he broke out in tears so often (a complaint most bring forth).
Nicole Kidman was also fascinating, she felt very immersed into her role.
The dialogue is so abstract and the line delivery so slow and over the top, it's hard not to like most of it.
It's almost like a down-to-earth 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's difficult to comprehend and analyze and leaves you almost clueless with the cold ending. It's something most people don't know how to feel about, and I honestly have never seen a film like it.
But, that's what I like. It's an intelligent depiction of how we mask trust and compatibility with our own sensual desires.
It nearly scrutinizes marriage and how something as simple as a dream, a meaningless margin containing fragments of memory, can impact and change two human beings and the way they think, act and most importantly: love.
