Tom Cruise plays Dr. William Harford, a wealthy family doctor who moves in New York high society, and Nicole Kidman plays his wife, Alice, an art gallery director who left her job to raise their daughter. The two are more effective on-screen, especially Kidman, than in either of their two previous pairings, Days of Thunder (where they first met) and Far and Away. The Harfords move with comfort in the high-priced surroundings, as though they were born to it. At a Christmas party hosted by their friend, Victor Zeigler (Sydney Pollak in his best role since Tootsie), they almost prowl like sleek jungle cats, exuding power and sensuality as they greet and flirt with Zeigler's guests.
It's after the party when things begin to spiral downward into a maelstrom of jealousy, nightmares, and forbidden eroticism. Driven out of their house by Alice's pot-induced memory of an adulterous fantasy, Harford enters a world of mysterious pleasure. Everyone he meets reacts to him sexually: a friend (Marie Richardson) whose father is dying, a gang of gay-bashers, a hooker (Vinessa Shaw), even his conversations with a pianist friend (Todd Field) and a costumer (Sherbedgia) seem fraught with sexual undertones. The pianist friend mentions a mystery gig he plays every now and then... blindfolded. Intrigued, Dr. Bill manages to gatecrash the shindig, and what he discovers shook up the MPAA Rating Board so much they slapped an NC-17 on the proceedings.
Kubrick's contract with Warner Bros. required that he deliver an R-rated picture. To that end, he had discussed proposed changes with WB execs, which involved possibly including digital figures as camouflage, according to reports. These figures appear in 65 seconds of altered footage, and on first glance (to the untrained eye) appear to be part of the scene. But considering Kubrick's careful framing, and the motif of Dr. Bill as voyeur, never as participant, it's an affront to artistic sensibilities that the images had to be added.
Questions have been raised about motivation. Alice's fantasy confession about a sailor, some say, should not be enough to send Bill out seeking a sexual fantasy of his own. It's not a direct causal effect, though: Alice's confession, combined with the phone call that takes him to the friend with the dying father, take Bill out of the apartment. Thoughts about his wive's supposed betrayal are not all that's swirling through the doctor's mind -- augmenting his jealousy is a feeling of a loss of control. Not over Alice; the script isn't that overtly mysoginist in the Bill/Alice relationship. No, the doctor is feeling a loss of control over his understanding, his confidence, in the marriage. That he doesn't know what's going through Alice's mind sexually is a stunning revelation to his complacency, a blow to his hubris as an edjumicated doctor who supposedly understands what the human animal is all about. He doesn't immediately seek out the dark, ritualistic orgy (replete with masks and robes) -- he is lured by temptation by degrees. And when he passes the gay-bashers, it's as though he has to reassert his masculinity by taking a hooker's offer for company.
