Eyes Wide Shut
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Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A wife confesses a fantasy; her husband walks New York all night looking for one of his own.
Dr Bill Harford and his wife, Alice, live in Manhattan with their young daughter, Helena. At a Christmas party given by Bill's rich patient Victor Ziegler, Bill runs into Nick Nightingale, a medical-school friend turned pianist. An older Hungarian guest tries to seduce Alice, and two models flirt with Bill until he is called upstairs: a young woman, Mandy, has overdosed while with Victor. Bill revives her, and Victor asks him to keep quiet.
The next night, smoking marijuana, Bill tells Alice he has never worried about her, since women are naturally faithful. She answers with a confession. On holiday she fantasised about a naval officer she had only seen, and would have left Bill and Helena for him. Shaken, Bill is called to a patient who has just died; the man's daughter, Marion, kisses him and says she loves him. Wandering the streets, he goes home with a young prostitute, Domino, but a call from Alice interrupts, and he pays and leaves.
At a jazz club Nick tells him about a secret gathering where he plays blindfolded, and gives him the password. Bill rents a costume and mask from Mr Milich, who that night catches his teenage daughter with two men. At a mansion, masked guests watch a ritual and an orgy. A masked woman warns him of danger. Exposed as an intruder, he is ordered to undress; the woman offers herself in his place, and he is let go with a warning.
At home Alice tearfully tells him a dream: she was having sex with the naval officer and many other men, and laughing at Bill. Next day Bill learns that Nick has been taken away by two men, that Milich is prostituting his daughter, that Domino has tested HIV-positive, and that Mandy has died of an overdose. At the morgue he looks at her body; she may have been the masked woman. Victor admits he was at the party, says Bill's exposure was staged to frighten him and calls Mandy's death an accident. Bill comes home to find his lost mask on his pillow, breaks down and tells Alice everything. Christmas shopping with Helena the next day, Alice says there is something they must do soon. He asks what, and she answers with one word: 'Fuck.'
Starring
Tom Cruiseas Dr Bill Harford
A successful Manhattan doctor whose certainty about his marriage collapses after his wife's confession, sending him out into the night.
Dr Bill Harford’s story
Bill tells Alice, high one night, that women are naturally faithful. Her answer, that she would once have left him and Helena for a naval officer she only saw, sends him into a night of near-infidelities: a patient's daughter declares her love, a prostitute, Domino, takes him home until Alice calls, and his old classmate Nick gives him the password to a secret orgy. There he is exposed as an intruder, and a masked woman offers herself in his place. Next day he learns that Nick has been taken away, Domino has HIV and Mandy, whom he revived at a party, has overdosed and died; Ziegler says his exposure was staged to scare him. Finding his lost mask on his pillow, he breaks down and confesses everything. In a toy shop Alice tells him what they must do.
Nicole Kidmanas Alice Harford
Bill's wife, who shatters his complacency by confessing a fantasy about a stranger she once saw.
Alice Harford’s story
Alice looks after their daughter, Helena, and at Ziegler's Christmas party dances with an older Hungarian guest who tries to seduce her. The next night, high, she answers Bill's certainty that women are naturally faithful with a confession: on holiday she saw a naval officer for whom she would have given up Bill and Helena. While Bill is out all night, she laughs in her sleep, and wakes to tell him in tears of a dream of sex with the officer and many other men, laughing at Bill. The next night he finds his lost mask on his pillow, breaks down and tells her everything. Christmas shopping the next day, she says they should be grateful to have survived their adventures, real or dreamed, that they are awake now, and that there is something they must do soon: 'Fuck.'
Sydney Pollackas Victor Ziegler
Bill's rich patient and host, who knows more about the secret gathering than he first admits.
Todd Fieldas Nick Nightingale
Bill's old classmate from medical school, now a pianist, who tells him the password to the secret gathering.
Marie Richardsonas Marion Nathanson
The daughter of a patient who has just died, who declares her love for Bill beside her father's body.
Vinessa Shawas Domino
A young prostitute who takes Bill home, and about whom he hears hard news the following day.
Why it matters
Eyes Wide Shut is about the fantasies married people keep from each other, and what happens when one is spoken aloud. Alice's confession is only a thought, never an act, yet it sends Bill through a night of infidelities he never completes, into a world where sex is a ritual of wealth and power and women's bodies are bought, used and discarded. Stanley Kubrick adapted Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Dream Story, cast Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, then married to each other, and shot for some 400 days, a Guinness record; he died six days after delivering his final cut to Warner Bros. For its American release the orgy was digitally altered to avoid an adults-only rating. The ending is plain to the point of shock: after everything, the one honest step left for a husband and wife is to go home and make love.