‘Eyes Wide Shut’ explained: What does Milich’s daughter whisper to Dr Bill Harford?
Like most of his films, Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 erotic drama Eyes Wide Shut is rife with mystery and intrigue. As Tom Cruise makes his way through the sexual elite underground of New York as Dr Bill Harford, audiences are met with several questions about the realities of the film, and one of the most prominent is what Milich’s daughter whispers into his ear.
The scene in question occurs in a lavish costume shop owned by a man named Milich, a strange property where both pleasure and the clandestine come together and where Bill searches for appropriate attire to wear to the secret party run by the underground sexual elite of New York City.
After rooting through his wears to find Bill a black cloak, he’s disturbed by a sound coming from next door and investigates to find his young daughter in a peculiar act with two men dressed as women, further iterating the kind of sexual forbiddenness that permeates the entire film.
Milich’s daughter runs out of the room and hides behind Bill, holding on to him and smiling. As she is sent to be by her father, she whispers something into the ear of Bill, at first indecipherable to the audience, leading to one of Eyes Wide Shut’s biggest mysteries, a mystery that holds symbolic weight, as do many of Kubrick’s most enigmatic moments.
The whispered words further send Bill into his state of sexual discovery and his quest to give into temptation, but the fact that they are kept secret from the audience suggests that it is a forbidden knowledge that audience members will not become privy to, a warning to Bill as he digs further into the mysterious truth of the elite.
Just as the “Fidelio” password to get into the party possesses a strange allure, Milich’s daughter’s whisper is equally as inviting. Upon closer inspection, lip-reading and examining the DVD version of the film’s subtitles, it’s revealed that Bill is told by the young woman that he “should have a cloak lined with ermine” as she walks away with a knowing look in her eye.
This indicates that Milich’s daughter somehow knows of the kind of events and occurrences that Bill will soon witness. However, upon watching the film, the contents of her words are indeed kept secret, and it more likely appears that she’s extended Bill a sexual invitation of sorts.
In that light, and in line with the overall themes of the film, Milich’s daughter’s whispers are representative of the seductive allure of the unknown. Bill is clearly in a state of arousal when the girl whispers in his ear, just as she is when she utters the secluded words as if offering a bite of the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden as Bill continues down his path of sexual self-discovery.
While the words can be deciphered – “You should have a cloak lined with ermine” – the reality of them is for them to be kept secret, and the fact that audience members must undertake their own investigation to discover their truth is representative of their shrouded necessity.
Like so many of Kubrick’s most enigmatic moments, the words that Milich’s daughter whispers to Dr Bill Harford in Eyes Wide Shut contain symbolic significance; only in this instance is their mystery their central point. By limiting access to these words, Kubrick removes his audience from the kind of underground sexuality that Bill is in the midst of, which makes them all the more frustratingly alluring.
Was Eyes Wide Shut Stanley Kubrick’s final movie?
Yes, Eyes Wide Shut was indeed the final movie of Stanley Kubrick’s remarkable career as a film director. It was released in 1999, just after he died in March of that year. By that point, Kubrick had released several masterpieces, including A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining.
He bowed out with Eyes Wide Shut, the erotic drama starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, based on a short story by Arthur Schnitzler called ‘Dream Story’. The film was well-admired and has achieved cult status ever since it was released just prior to the beginning of the 21st century.
Why is it called Eyes Wide Shut?
There is no official reason as to why Kubrick’s final movie is called Eyes Wide Shut, but there are several symbolic interpretations. In line with the themes of forbidden sexuality, the film’s title suggests that its characters and its audience alike will have their eyes opened to what had been previously hidden from them.
In that light, there is also the idea that where a person’s eyes may be open to what is right in front of them, its truth can still remain hidden and obscured. Finally, the shutting of the eyes may relate to the action taken during sex or the banishing of certain realms of society.
