💥 Thrillers (1999) 🎼 Composer Spotlight 🏅 Top 100

"Give up your inquiries which are completely useless, and consider these words a second warning. We hope, for your own good, that this will be sufficient." | "I'll tell you everything."

How have I avoided watching Eyes Wide Shut until this week? It’s everything I thought it would be, but better, more tense, and more nuanced.

There was a time in my life where going to the party in this film would absolutely have been a goal. It is perfect for a younger and slightly less risk-averse and more trusting version of myself. My wife and I did end up at parties that fancy but not parties that sexy, and sadly never both combined, and I suppose this is good for my not being threatened with murder.

Mild spoilers for the first third of the film the blockquote. Skip as desired.

Because of that, the marital dynamics on display here are familiar to me. Unfortunately, they are accurate. A long-term monogamous commitment has ways of chafing that one wouldn’t expect before entering into it. The strain on the protagonist’s marriage looks like reality. The concept of one’s partner having no jealousy, for example, can be read as taking the other for granted or being overly sure of oneself, as happens at the beginning of this film. It affects how you see yourself as a human and as a sexual person.

Both of the leads in this film do something that often occurs: veer a bit away from monogamy and over-disclose to each other while not prepared to handle the consequences. Usually, this happens while drunk or drugged. Sometimes it happens to poke the other person into showing anger or jealousy, or to test if one is still desired. This muddled emotional mix of uncertainty, fear or anger related to a perceived betrayal, and feeling devaluated or unseen sexually is the perfect setup for a rapid-onset marital catastrophe.

Negotiating the new emotions and fears that the leads trigger in each other is one key challenge the film addresses. Mentally or physically exploring how it would feel not to be faithful, and the complexities around this, lead the characters to a dark place almost immediately and before they have any clue what’s hit them. And yet sometimes this stew increases mutual attraction as well. The wife expresses, at one point, how this made her desire for her partner stronger. That resonates. You can always tell when an author has lived a full life by how clearly they capture these mundane but high-stakes situations. Stanley Kubrick has clearly lived, because he gets it right.

Eyes Wide Shut is dripping with glamour. The look of the film itself is also beautiful. Less immediately noticeable is the music, which becomes brilliant. Jocelyn Pook’s s score, by the last half of the movie, is generally limited to two or three percussive piano notes that express tension. Less is more here. I suppose by 1999, musical minimalism was completely mainstream, but I didn't expect a score closer to Terry Riley than Schnittke or John Williams.

The way she can build tension and express changing emotions with such a minimal tonal palette was impressive enough that I spent a portion of the film distracted by how cool it was, which was probably not ideal, but it is because that was really cool. But she also wrote a long vocal chant piece that is completely different and suits the mood of the scene. I was impressed. And a happy surprise for me was that she also composed the music for Tin & Tina, a personal favorite film released this year, a quarter of a century later. She’s worth paying attention to, so I’ve added her to the 🎼 Composer Spotlight list.

I may not still be trying to get an invite to that party—if you have one, please don’t write me using the discord link in my profile—but I am glad I finally watched Eyes Wide Shut. It’s as strong as I expected. Don’t put this one off for years the way that I did. It’s very worthwhile to watch.

Recommended.

Some Lists:

🏅 Top 100 Films
💥 Thrillers | 1990s Horror & Thrillers Ranked
🎼 Spotlight on Composers in Horror
💎 Slightly Hidden Horror Gems and 🌱 Candidates
📽️ Viewing Next | 🗂️ Index of Lists (needs an update)

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