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{"id":1826,"date":"2007-02-14T20:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-14T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2007\/02\/1826\/"},"modified":"2007-02-14T20:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-14T20:45:00","slug":"1826","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2007\/02\/1826.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

HAPPY VALENTINE\u2019S DAY! HERE\u2019S A REVIEW OF \u201cEYES WIDE SHUT\u201d!<\/strong> Okay, the dumb basic response is that I\u2019m really glad I saw this. That said (with some spoilers, so if you are like me and hate spoilers, please know that you should put this movie in your Netflix queue instanter, even though you will probably dislike it):<\/p>\n

1. Sean Collins is obviously right that it\u2019s a horror film<\/a>. He gets at lots of the details that make it \u201c\u2018Eyes Wide Shut,\u2019 from the director of \u2018The Shining\u2019!\u201d, and I agree with every word of his write-up; but I think he misses the dumb basic point: Most horror films have the moral, \u201cDon\u2019t!\u201d<\/strong> And in that sense, EWS<\/em> is a horror movie about committing adultery in your heart.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

2. It\u2019s so amazing, as a movie. The colors are astonishing\u2013the cobalt blues and neon oranges of Van Gogh\u2019s madness. The acting\u2013I honestly didn\u2019t know that Nicole Kidman or Tom Cruise could act at all, and now\u2026 yeah, okay. I get it. Especially for Kidman. She\u2019s melodramatic in a way that makes it part of her character and her world; she makes every studied gesture a statement about the world in which all her gestures would need to be studied and perfect. The rushing, pulsing camera was amazing, especially in the taxi scenes. The ideas behind the movie\u2013what if sex were the instrument of horror? what if physical contact weren\u2019t necessary for that to happen?\u2013are brilliant.<\/p>\n

3. But.<\/p>\n

The movie pulls back before the brink\u2013before every<\/em> brink. How are its protagonists changed by the end? What have their experiences cost them? I can\u2019t think of anything.<\/p>\n

The Cruise-Kidman couple have a daughter. I thought perhaps she would be the key to the movie: sex as generativity vs. sex as destructive weapon. That didn\u2019t happen, which is fine\u2013that particular opposition is something I feel like I understand pretty well, and I\u2019d really be more intrigued by alternative dichotomies. (Horror, I think, feeds on dichotomies.) But Helena\u2019s role in the plot turned out to be deeply disturbing to me: It seemed like she was a token doled out to the survivors as a reward for good behavior\u2013like the blue and pink molded plastic figurines in the LIFE boardgame.<\/p>\n

4. Nudity. EWS<\/em> needed (female) nudity, in the way that Pauline Reage\u2019s Story of O<\/em> needs explicit descriptions. The movie tried hard to get us to recognize that we weren\u2019t seeing girls\u2019 bushes for no reason: The huge painting of a naked lady, in Ziegler\u2019s suite, was probably the most obvious example. Her genitals were always hidden\u2013ostentatiously hidden\u2013by the scenery, whereas the actual genitals of the actress who played Ziegler\u2019s brief inamorata were constantly on display. So clearly we\u2019re supposed to think something about the fact that women\u2019s bodies (and not male bodies, ever) are displayed for us here.<\/p>\n

Well\u2026 not only did EWS<\/em> ignore the most startling and compelling moods of O<\/em> (the sunlight slanting through late afternoon) in favor of a cliched Black Mass orgy. More importantly, the strictures of Hollywood stardom (maybe?) required that Kidman never get quite<\/em> as naked as her female cohorts. So we see them from the front, but she\u2019s only naked from the back. That difference reinforces the sense already invited by the movie\u2019s ending: There are good girls and bad girls. Good girls shouldn\u2019t be cheated on, even in your head, and you should have sex with them and display their nudity tastefully from the back. Bad girls may get killed and raped and even<\/em> photographed in full-frontal, and your only responsibility is to avoid them. No guilt attaches to you if you leave them to be destroyed.<\/p>\n

In the end, I think EWS<\/em> is a shocking, brilliant, hollow<\/em> movie. Deep on the outside; shallow within.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"