God rest ye horny gentlemen this Christmas, and let Tom Cruise broaden your notions of holiday movies with one word: fidelio.
Fidelio is the title of Beethoven’s only opera, following Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named Fidelio, as she tries to rescue her husband Florestan from death in a political prison.
Fidelio is also the word passed to Cruise’s Dr. Bill on a bar napkin under the enchanting glow of the Sonata Cafe’s twinkling lights, leading him to the black gates of a masked, cloaked orgy.
With that, there’s something very important we need to do as soon as possible: watch Eyes Wide Shut.
Eyes Wide Shut is a bizarre, brilliant Christmas movie
Stanley Kubrick was a master. The Shining is one of the great horrors, Full Metal Jacket stacks other war movies five feet high, Barry Lyndon is the crème de la crème of period pieces, 2001: A Space Odyssey is the superlative sci-fi. So, it’s no surprise his stately fantasia of darkness and sexual desire is one of the best Christmas films.
Eyes Wide Shut was his last movie. He passed away on March 7, 1999, six days after he showed his final cut to Warner Bros. There has been some debate over its state of completion, with some close to the director believing it to be unfinished. However, despite underperformance at the box office and middling reviews, its reception has matured and deepened over time.
Cruise and Nicole Kidman play a married couple; ostensibly happy, but erotically estranged. The events of a glimmering Christmas party and a pot-fuelled argument lead to a devastating admission: years prior, as the couple were having sex, Kidman was dreaming of another man.
With lovesick fury bubbling under the skin, he descends onto the twilight streets of New York, meeting homophobic drunks, a sex worker, a fierce owner of a costume shop with a promiscuous underage daughter (with a “smile of impish desire,” as per Arthur Schnitzler’s original text, ‘Traumnovelle’), and in the film’s most notorious sequence, a huge cult-like orgy where death and sex appear to intertwine.
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Jingling any bells? Its likeness may not immediately seem obvious, but it does add up. Can you think of another Christmas movie where a man disillusioned with his life, seemingly falling apart at its very core, wanders around and learns the value of what he has?
It’s a Wonderful Life is a timeless classic, and the spirit of its narrative can be seen throughout cinema; Lethal Weapon is another festive example, as is Eyes Wide Shut. Bill’s odyssey isn’t dissimilar to George Bailey’s, wandering around the ruins, dangers, and fates of distant lives and forcing himself into their impenetrable orbit – only with some sex sprinkled in.
“Everything seemed unreal: his home, his wife, his child, his profession, and even he himself, mechanically walking along through the nocturnal streets with his thoughts roaming through space,” the original text reads, mirroring the star’s aimless strolling around the Big Apple, mulling over temptation and flashes of Kidman with another man.
While George Bailey runs through the streets of Bedford Falls with the biggest smile, Cruise’s epiphany is remorseful. Nevertheless, he finds himself where the rainbow ends, and it’s where it began all along. “Life goes on. It always does, until it doesn’t.”
Eyes Wide Shut is available to stream on Paramount Plus, which you can sign up for here. You can also check out our list of the best Christmas movies of all time here.
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