A friend of mine once said an important difference between fantasy novels and our mundane reality is that our woods do not have giant, man-eating spiders in them. Eyes Wide Shut is about a man who learns there are, indeed, giant spiders lurking in our world.
This film is not for everyone. It builds with a kind of deliberate, glacial speed (this is Kubrick, after all)...and then takes the most incredible left turn, a plot twist that left me gasping and helpless to tear my eyes from the screen. I had come to this film expecting a self-indulgent swan-song, but what I got was nothing short of a masterpiece.
Buy it, rent it, see it on Netflix, or whatever. But see it.
Once you've seen it, here's a wonderful analysis of the film to savor. And another, slightly more esoteric, deconstruction which overreaches a bit, but still offers some clever insights.
