Hoo boy. As others have said, this was the most trumpeted movie of the year, bar Star Wars. But I have to ask myself, what was all the fuss about?

I know some critics have raved about it, and since I am not a qualified critic, maybe I missed something. On the other hand, maybe I just had my eyes wide open when I watched it...

The fault may not be with Kubrick, but with the source material -- a story which dates from the 1920s. I didn't know that at the time, but now it puts things much more in perspective.

Consider: a man hears from his wife that she had a sexual fanatasy with another man. Note that nothing actually happened except that she daydreamed. Now we are asked to believe that this revelation is sufficient to entice him to consider -- and pursue --extramarital affairs. Good grief! Ok, so maybe it was the insults about looking homosexual that pushed him over the edge...

And as the plot would have it, said possible liaisons are not hard to find, in short order, from a patient, a sex worker, an underage girl, even a gay hotel clerk. Everyone is throwing themselves at our poor hero. Amazing, isn't it?

The most voyeuristic part of the film is when the good doctor, his marriage vows still intact, enters in a secret ceremony at a mansion, where lots of naked ladies parade around and a good bonk is had by all. At that point we almost have a murder mystery, waiting to be solved by Tom Cruise, Man of Action. Whoops, sorry, wrong movie.

At this point I refrain from giving away more of the plot, and instead will point out what else bothered me...

The film was preceded by publicity along the lines of "the sex scenes were so hot that the director insisted on a husband-wife team to enact them". Where? Cruise and Kidman never get much past a bit of forplay. Her fantasy is much hotter, even though it was in black and white.

There are also disturbing glitches in the film, a result I suppose of taking two years to make the film and reshooting scenes. The most noticable are the sudden changes in lighting (from soft light to harsh) within a scene. There is also the time when something about Kidman changes mid-scene, possibly her hair style. Add in the doctor who makes house calls without his little black bag, and does not even write out the death certificate for one of his own patients.

Another anomaly was the large amounts of cash Cruise carried around, but I guess there were no credit cards back in the 1920s. It would also explain why the wealthy family relied so much on taxis, their one car being in a garage or something.

Apparently Kubrick wanted to make a porn movie as that was about the only thing he hadn't done yet. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but it left me totally unaroused. Oh look, still another naked lady... (yawn...). I spent the time examining the various shapes of breasts on display. A purely scientific study :-)

Overall, I considered the film pretty average, and a disappointment from such a famous director.