text: Genre The film was described by some reviewers, and partially marketed, as an erotic thriller, a categorization disputed by others. It is classified as such in the book The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema, by Linda Ruth Williams, and was described as such in news articles about Cruise and Kidman's lawsuit over assertions that they saw a sex therapist during filming. The positive review in Combustible Celluloid describes it as an erotic thriller upon first viewing, but actually a "complex story about marriage and sexuality". High-Def Digest also called it an erotic thriller.
  However, reviewing the film at AboutFilm.com, Carlo Cavagna regards this as a misleading classification, as does Leo Goldsmith, writing at notcoming.com, and the review on Blu-ray.com. Writing in TV Guide, Maitland McDonagh writes "No one familiar with the cold precision of Kubrick's work will be surprised that this isn't the steamy erotic thriller a synopsis (or the ads) might suggest." Writing in general about the genre of 'erotic thriller' for CineAction in 2001, Douglas Keesey states that "whatever [Eyes Wide Shut] actual type, [it] was at least marketed as an erotic thriller". Michael Koresky, writing in the 2006 issue of film journal Reverse Shot, writes "this director, who defies expectations at every turn and brings genre to his feet, was  ... setting out to make neither the 'erotic thriller' that the press maintained nor an easily identifiable 'Kubrick film. DVD Talk similarly dissociates the film from this genre.