The film follows a married couple, Bill (a doctor) and Alice Harford (a housewife). On the surface, they look like they’re doing well, until the party. A lavish, glittering night where small cracks start to show.
Bill flirts comfortably with two models, almost on autopilot, while Alice lingers on the dance floor with another man a little too long. Nothing technically happens, but something shifts.
Later, they smoke a joint together, and the tension finally surfaces. Alice suddenly accuses Bill of sleeping with the two models at the party. It’s projection. She’s confronting him with the desire she hasn’t yet admitted out loud, not because she’s wrong to feel it, but because naming it destabilizes everything he thought was solid.
This entire conversation quickly ruins their illusion…
She admits that one summer, while they were on vacation, she imagined walking away from her marriage, her child, her entire life, for another man she met at the resort. Nothing physical ever happened. The fantasy alone was enough to shake her.
And that’s all it takes.
Bill doesn’t lose his wife in that moment. He loses the story he told himself about her. About marriage. About control. What hurts him isn’t jealousy, it’s humiliation. The realization that he never truly owned the narrative the way he believed he did.
From there, the Director lets Bill unravel. Right after Alice’s confession, Bill gets called out for a house visit. Back when doctors actually made house calls. The good old days.
He spends the rest of the film drifting through a world that feels unreal and hostile. Bill moves through bedrooms, parties, hotel hallways, strange apartments. He keeps getting invited in. He keeps thinking he’s welcome. But he never quite is.
Doors open, but only halfway.
Sex is always nearby, always suggested, never given. It’s like the film keeps dangling it in front of him, then pulling it away. Desire is everywhere, but it’s never meant for him.
Right before the masked orgy scene, the camera moves slowly forward as the masked figures look down at Bill. It’s subtle, almost quiet, but it feels heavy. The camera doesn’t rush. It advances deliberately, like he’s being inspected. Judged. You feel him shrink in real time.
The director Kubrick does this a lot, that slow, creeping push, and it always feels like a trap closing. I am very familiar with his films. This is his trademark. No dialogue. No warning. Just the realization that everyone is watching him, and he doesn’t belong.
So everyone at this mysterious gathering is anonymous. No one looks present. Bill stands out immediately, even with a mask on. You know it won’t end well the second he walks in.
And it doesn’t.
But no one yells. No one threatens him. No one explains anything. He’s just… exposed. Quietly reminded that he’s not supposed to be there.
That silence is what makes it unsettling.
Alice’s fantasy feels dangerous because it’s honest. It’s hers. The women in the ritual, on the other hand, blur together. Faces covered. Bodies interchangeable. Desire is allowed, but only on someone else’s terms.
By the end, nothing dramatic happens.
Kubrick wasn’t trying to teach a lesson with this film. He wanted to leave people uncomfortable.
With the quiet realization that desire doesn’t disappear just because a marriage looks “good.”
That fantasies exist, even when nothing happens. That power decides who gets to act on desire and who doesn’t.
And that thinking you fully understand your partner is probably an illusion.
Bill doesn’t grow wiser. Alice isn’t punished. No one really “learns.” Life just continues, slightly cracked. This is reality.
After everything is stripped away, fantasy, ego, control, the only thing left isn’t virtue or clarity. It’s the decision to stay present with each other anyway, knowing full well how fragile that choice is.
Honestly, Vanessa 