Four: Calling phones

Maiden Marion and the Cruise-Kidman twins

In today’s instalment of our festive series on Eyes Wide Shut, we join Bill Harford at the first stop of his journey to the end of the night and day before he homes in on his wife Alice. Get the whole sweaty, seamy, eye-popping odyssey here or by subscribing below.

When Sandor the Hungarian was chatting up Alice at the Zieglers’ Christmas party, he told her marriage used to be how women “could lose their virginity and be free to do what they wanted with other men… the ones they really wanted.” (“How interesting,” Alice replies to the mini-lecture.) This theory gets inverted by Marion Nathanson, daughter of the patient whose death was announced in a phone call to Bill, right at the birth of his newfound jealous rage towards Alice.

At the Nathansons’ apartment Bill offers Marion trite condolences, her dad lying on his deathbed in the background. Their talk then moves towards the light of her coming marriage, to a man called Carl. Contrary to Sandor, Marion doesn’t view the prospect of marriage as freeing but restricting. For she’s in love with Bill, so she declares, having smothered him with kisses like the Scandi stereotype in a 70s sex comedy. Even more stereotypically, they’re saved by the doorbell, announcing her fiancé. (A neat bit of acting from Tom Cruise when he subtly wipes…