Reviews

Overall, I enjoyed this film. I liked the leads and thought they had good chemistry, and while not as funny as, say, American Pie, I did find many of the jokes amusing.

However, there was one aspect of the film that really bothered me, which I notice has been mentioned by others as well.

(SPOILER WARNING)

Now, if a woman was handcuffed to a bed and sleeping and somewhat delirious and her ex-boyfriend showed up and had sex with her, when she is clearly in no position to give consent, few people would hesitate to label that as rape, and it certainly would not go without mention and condemnation in the film. Yet Nicole rapes Matt, and the only issue that seems to arise is how he screwed up. Excuse me? Granted, blaming the rape victim is not a new concept, but one would hope in this day and age it doesn't find its way into films, at least not without suitable counter statements being made. Male rape is a serious issue that is rarely dealt with as such, and movies like this tend to reinforce the erroneous belief that male rape doesn't exist, except in prison, or Deliverance. Maybe we shouldn't expect this movie to have any great social impact, challenge the views of the establishment, but acknowledgement that SOMETHING wrong had happened (other than Matt "screwing up") would have been nice. I seriously hope Nicole didn't get to collect on her bet.

Also, someone suggested that it was unrealistic for Matt not to have woken up before he had an orgasm. I'm not a guy, so I can't speak from experience, but there are such things as wet dreams. It seems to me that was essentially what Matt had, only unbeknownst to him, he had a little help. (That's actually what I found unbelievable; surely he would have long since had a wet dream on his own. But it's a movie.)

By definition, a suspense film is supposed to be full of suspense. However, it is a little hard to feel said suspense when you know the ending, the so-called "twist" in the plot, and so forth, five minutes into the movie. Everything was consistent; all the pieces fit together at the end and there's none of that "that didn't make sense" feeling like there is with some films. (Warning! The following statements may be spoiler-esque.) But the early scenes were too revealing, particularly Katie's memory of the robbery- not so much where she tells the cop what happened, but when she's just thinking about it privately. I think the writers have been reading too many psych text books. I think it's a decent plot twist in and of itself, but it was made too obvious for anyone who's ever read anything about it. Perhaps they got too carried away with how clever they were to actually incorporate and conceal it cleverly in the story.

WARNING: There may be small spoilers included in the following.

I have come to expect these types of movies to not be very good, but this film sounded like it had more potential than your average run-of-the-mill horror flick. Plus, I'd just seen The Faculty, which while not good, wasn't too bad. But this movie disappointed me, because it had so much potential then through it away. I agree with many of the other comments that suggested the makers of this film needed to focus more on certain aspects of the story, e.g., why the parents were consenting to this, the whole bit about Steve's brother, etc. I wanted to know why Steve's parents bought into the whole thing, given that Steve didn't seem too badly adjusted at all; and was the whole point of moving to this town to "fix" Steve in the first place? Also, if the point of this surgery/brainwashing thing is to make kids "good", why does everyone seem to accept that the Blue Ribbons tend to do nasty, even lethal things? That strikes me as wrecking kids, not fixing them. See other comments for a whole bunch more ridiculous, implausible, or ambiguous thins that are wrong with this film.

On the whole, the acting was pretty mediocre, although I'm not sure if that was really a result of the acting or of the horrible dialogue; I suspect it was a bit of both, because the character of Gavin didn't come off as too ridiculous, and yet he had some of the stupidest lines to say. While I do appreciate the fact that the writer has an extensive vocabulary, it did not seem right for some words and phrases to be pouring from the mouths of these teenagers. I appreciate that every second word was not "f@ck" or some derivative. But in a movie about teenagers, the teens should talk like teens, not like English Literature professors. Aside from the sometimes gratuitous use of ten-point words, the dialogue was also often stilted and forced, which contributed to a sense that this whole movie was just unbelievable and ridiculous.

I would be interested in seeing the DVD version of this film to see what was cut out, because there really did seem to be glaring holes in the film; why on earth would anyone cut a film down to only 84 min? What is this, some Saturday Night Live skit brought to the big screen? It had about as many laughs...

Anyway, this film was poorly executed. It should have been better. And that's about all there is to say. If you choose to watch this film, try not to let your expectations get too high.

I don't think this is a great movie, but I do think it has some great points. It deals with sexual dysfunction in a way that is different from most films. I'm not sure it's necessary to say that I'm going to give a spoiler here, since movies about a female's sexual dysfunction generally give the same cause for it, but for those who haven't noticed this, then I guess I'm going to give a spoiler here. Anyway, this film's different approach to sexual dysfunction is particularly apparent where Lee's character describes her past relationship with her father and how she felt about things at the time; few movies dare to stray from the typical "horrific memories of abuse that I repressed in the past are now ruining my life" approach. This film does not exploit Lee's character's past abuse, like so many other films seem to. Her past abuse is essential for understanding who her character is and what her relationships are with those around her, as this movie is a character and relationship study. Her abuse is not treated trivially or like some cheap plot device. It is also valuable to see how Lee's character's abuse affects her husband; so often, movies and television shows have the guy deal with such things in a highly unrealistic and polarized manner, even though knowledge of another's abuse can profoundly affect others as well. This movie does a decent job of dealing with this.

I think this is a good movie for couples to watch; many people would benefit from observing the characters in this film communicating with each other.

For those who are turned off by a lot of sex in a film, this movie does have it, but this film is NOT like soft porn. The sex is generally not erotic, and it seems to be more about the characters involved than about the act itself. Even the sex in this movie is about communication, and I think that's a valuable thing, because so many people seem to clam up when it comes to sex, rather than talking about it with their partner.

As for Lee's character's borderline personality: For those who don't really know what that is and who find that the movie's description was too vague or ambiguous, if you type "borderline personality disorder" into the search box in most any search engine, you will find that there are lots of sites devoted to BPD, which may give you a greater insight into Lee's character. Or head down to your local library (or perhaps university library) and pick up a copy of the DSM-IV or a psychology textbook. Just avoid self-diagnosis or diagnosing your friends with the information. BPD is quite a fascinating this; I'm surprised more movies don't make use of it, instead of constantly using Multiple Personality Disorder (now called "Dissociative Identity Disorder") and/or repressed memories to explain everything unusual a person does, especially considering both MPD and repressed memories are highly controversial topics in psychology at the moment.

This movie needed more editing. I know they wanted to keep the film the way Kubrick made it, but it seems unlikely to me that he wasn't going to edit it anymore after other people actually saw it. Some of the transitions between scenes are absolutely horrible, and there is a lot of wasted space, though that likely would've stayed in the film; Kubrick always liked to plod along.

Which brings me to my second criticism of this film. At times I found it, well, boring, which seems strange, since it was billed as some kind of sex-fest; instead, there isn't that much sex in it, although in my opinion, that is probably a better thing. I also thought the scenes with LeeLee Sobieski were quite irrelevant. At most, they were amusing but added nothing to the story at all.

My fourth problem was those stupid added-in figures in the orgy scene. It's not that I need to see what they're obscuring; the problem is that the figures were extremely distracting and really stood out.

My fifth problem also relates to the orgy scene: why were most of the women so skinny? The piano player talks about how amazing the women are there, and then they turn out to be a bunch of sticks. I'm sorry, but if I can see all the bones in someone's back, even those in the lower back, bulging out, that person is too thin. And people wonder why women sometimes feel so much pressure to lose weight. In the case of the thighless woman who warns Cruise, I suppose it makes some amount of sense, because she's supposed to be a drug addict. The only thing I can figure out, other than perhaps the casting director having some serious issues relating to body image in other people, is that the sometimes twisted attendants at the orgy prefer for some reason women who are highly abnormal.

My last problem was the sometimes gratuitous use of the word f*ck. I realise that many people use that word frequently. My problem with it is that, at least among people I know, when you're talking about sex with your (potential) life partner, you don't usually use such a crude word to describe having sex with that person. Yet it is used frequently in this movie in that context. "F*ck" is a word that fits very well to Kidman's fantasy about the naval guy, but not to her having sex with Cruise. I suppose this is just my opinion, but I did have a problem with that, although it didn't affect my view of this film much.

What I DID like about this film was that the basic idea of the film should provoke discussion among couples. In perhaps a strange phenomenon, Person A knows that he or she is attracted to people other than Person B, and may even have been seriously tempted to act on such feelings, but it doesn't occur to him or her that Person B is in exactly the same situation. And sometimes it bothers Person A immensely, just like in this film. I suppose this is because we all know what goes on in our own heads, but we have to guess at what goes on in other people's; we don't know just HOW tempted they were, or if they acted on the impulse and just aren't admitting it. It seems to me that this is a subject matter that every couple needs to discuss, rather than assuming something and living in a fantasy world, until it all comes crashing down when the illusion is shattered (like in the film- all that stiff about women being "different" than men).

Warning: slight spoiler ahead. Some people, including those I saw this movie with, seem to have missed the point of the HIV+ hooker. My take on that was to show just what Cruise could have lost by acting on his jealous, untrusting, and perhaps vengeful impulses. Instead, he got lucky- not in the way one usually would with a hooker, but because his wife called him on his cell right before he did the deed. Would he have gone through with it had she not called? I would not have been sure he would, except that the next evening, he was already to get it on with hooker number 2, until she informed him of Domino's bad news. This to me is another good point of discussion: should such things count as infidelity, when a person did not commit the deed but would have if he had not been interrupted (in the first case)? And in the case of Kidman's fantasy with the naval guy: should her insistence that, had the evening gone by a little differently, she would have had sex with him, be taken as an act of infidelity on her part,or should she be given the benefit of the doubt that she wouldn't have been able to go through with it? I think it is important for both parties in a relationship to know where the line gets drawn.

I also thought that acting was, for the most part, good. I did not find Kidman's laughing fit remotely unbelievably; it was perfectly consisted with my experience, however limited, with pot smokers.

So basically, I thought this movie could have been substantially better (especially considering the number of retakes Kubrick insisted on), but it is still worth watching because it is thought provoking; it makes a person ponder both his or her own boundaries as well as those of his or her partner.

First, I'd like to say that there are spoilers in this review, although I will warn again right before I give them.

This movie scared the crap out of me, which is very unusual. I am usually only creeped out if I watch a movie at home alone in the dark in the middle of the night; in this case, I saw the movie with friends in a crowded theatre and it was still light out when we exited the theatre. Admittedly, I wasn't petrified at first. When we really got scared was when we were walking back to our hotel (as we were visiting a friend of mine) in an area that seemed to have an aversion to street lights. It was very dark and it did not help that we were walking by bushes. We were all totally freaked out and kept looking around behind us. We had the last scene of the movie stuck in our heads, and it stayed there. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had to leave a light on when I went to sleep. I haven't done that since I was 7 and saw an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, where the almost-final image of a girl hung outside on the door of her home stayed with me for days. Any movie that can have this kind of an effect on me is pretty unusual. Even now, when I'm thinking about the final scene of this movie, I am getting somewhat creeped out. The movie was highly disturbing, simply because it seemed so real and we DON'T actually know what happened. I am also with the group that thinks the acting was good; I think that in many cases they weren't acting. For example [WARNING: spoilers ahead!!!], when that one guy disappeared in the middle of the night, I would not be surprised at all if the other two did not know that was going to happen. Likewise, at the very end of the film, I wouldn't be surprised if the girl didn't know when she'd enter the basement, Mike would be standing in the corner. It really seemed to me like she was having a massive panic attack, at more than one point in the movie.

In any case, I highly recommend this film to anyone that wants to be scared out of their wits.