The Advent Calendar of Great Holiday Movies: Day 12 "Eyes Wide Shut"

The pre-Christmas Day season of Advent is upon us. Here at SeedSing we love the chocolaty goodness of getting a piece of candy once a day until we get to open our presents. As our gift to you we will present a great movie associated with the holiday season. Many will be awesome, some will be extra awesome. Enjoy.

Day 12: “Eyes Wide Shut”

Opened Doors: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

The holiday season can be quite busy for married couples. Many times we need to visit our parents, and with a married couple that is at least two sets of parents. If the couple has children, there is a number of school activities that must be attended. Within their own lives, married couples have numerous work gatherings, and parties thrown by their friends. With the constant need to be somewhere, or doing something, a married couple rarely finds time for themselves. Oh, and sex together is almost definitely out of the question.

In the summer of 1999 Stanley Kubrick’s last film “Eyes Wide Shut” opened in theaters. The legendary director had passed away a few months prior to film’s release. The production of “Eyes Wide Shut” was at four hundred days, a record that has still not been broken. The movie was a moderate success and has gone on as a curiosity for some, and part of a film student’s curriculum for others.

The plot of “Eyes Wide Shut” is fairly simple, and nonsensical. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, the Hollywood power couple of 1999, starred in the film as a married couple. Kidman’s character tells Cruise about a fantasy she has about having sex with a Navy man they met last year. Cruise is not happy about his wife’s fantasy, so he decides to go out on the town and be a little naughty. He almost kisses a prostitute, gets embarrassed and threatened by a secret society at an orgy, and identifies the body of a woman his friend was having sex with earlier in the film. Along the way we meet old friends who play piano at the orgy, a costume shop owner who sells his daughter into prostitution, and old friends who have sex with junkies that assure Cruise that everything is a okay. In the end, while shopping, Kidman tells Cruise there is only on thing left for them to do. With that “Eyes Wide Shut” ends with a one word exclamation. And this all takes place around Christmas.

It is hard to find time to be alone, and intimate, with one’s partner during the holidays. We all have much to do, in a very little time. We have school / church pageants. The shopping can take up morning, noon, and night. We might also find ourselves having to deal with the aftermath of an angry society of orgy havers. No matter how busy we are, couples should find the time to be together. To misquote Nicole Kidman at the end of ‘Eyes Wide Shut”, there is only one thing left for couples to do this holiday season and that is to cuddle.

RD

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Looking for a good Christmas tune that has some sadness behind it? Check out Tina S write about “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.

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