The Enigmatic Holiday Spectacle Featuring Tom Cruise That Defies Convention

May God bless you gentlemen during this Christmas season, and may Tom Cruise expand your holiday movie horizons with just one word: fidelio.

Fidelio is the name of Beethoven's sole opera, which follows the story of Leonore, who disguises herself as a prison guard named Fidelio in an attempt to save her husband Florestan from certain death in a political prison.

Let's make it a priority to watch Eyes Wide Shut as soon as possible, especially after seeing how the word "Fidelio" led Cruise's character to a mysterious and alluring masked orgy.

Eyes Wide Shut is a bizarre, brilliant Christmas movie

Stanley Kubrick was an exceptional director. His work on The Shining is a standout in the horror genre, while Full Metal Jacket outshines other war movies. Barry Lyndon is the pinnacle of period pieces, and 2001: A Space Odyssey is unparalleled in the realm of science fiction. It's no wonder that his elegant exploration of darkness and sexual desire is considered one of the top Christmas films.

Stanley Kubrick's final film was Eyes Wide Shut, released posthumously in 1999, with the director passing away just six days after presenting his final cut to Warner Bros. Despite some debate over the movie's completion, its reception has evolved and deepened over time, with the film initially receiving mixed reviews and underperforming at the box office. In the movie, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play a married couple, seemingly content but sexually disconnected. The plot unfolds during a Christmas party and a heated discussion while under the influence of marijuana, leading to a shocking revelation: Kidman had been fantasizing about another man while having sex with Cruise years earlier.

Warner Bros.

He prowls through the dimly lit streets of New York City, encountering rowdy homophobes, a sex worker, the bold owner of a costume shop with a provocative underage daughter (described with a “smile of mischievous longing,” as in Arthur Schnitzler’s original text, ‘Traumnovelle’), and culminating in the film's most infamous scene, a grand, cult-like orgy where death and desire seem to entwine.

Do you recognize the familiar plot? It may not be immediately obvious, but there are similarities. Can you think of another holiday movie where a man who feels disillusioned with life learns the value of what he has as he navigates through a world seemingly falling apart? "It’s a Wonderful Life" is a timeless classic, with its impact evident in other movies such as "Lethal Weapon" and "Eyes Wide Shut." In these films, characters embark on similar journeys to that of George Bailey, facing ruins, danger, and the influence of others. However, in these stories, there is an added element of sexuality.

It all felt like a dream: his house, his spouse, his child, his career, and even himself, moving mechanically through the nighttime streets with his mind wandering aimlessly. The original text reflects the star's wandering through New York City, pondering temptation and images of Kidman with another man.

While George Bailey joyfully runs through Bedford Falls, Cruise's realization is filled with regret. Yet, he finds himself back where it all started. "Life continues. It always does, until it doesn't."

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Editor's P/S

As a Gen Z netizen, I find the article's attempt to portray "Eyes Wide Shut" as a conventional Christmas movie quite amusing. The film's dark and unsettling themes, coupled with its explicit sexual content, make it far from the typical holiday fare. The comparison to "It's a Wonderful Life" is particularly jarring, as the two movies couldn't be more different in tone and message.

While I appreciate the article's enthusiasm for the film, I can't help but feel that it's trying too hard to sell it as something it's not. "Eyes Wide Shut" is a challenging and provocative piece of cinema that deserves to be appreciated on its own terms, rather than being shoehorned into a category it doesn't belong to.