Movie Review: The Stepford Wives

Stars (Out of 10): 6

One Word Summary: Tone-deaf

Movie Details: Stepford Wives, The Drama | Comedy | Suspense/Thriller MPAA RATING PG-13 for sexual content, thematic material and language 93 minutes | Color USA WRITTEN BY Paul Rudnick Ira Levin (book)   DIRECTED BY Frank Oz THEATRICAL RELEASE Jun 11, 2004   Relevant Sites: IMDB Official Movie Website Watch The Movie Trailers Shopping: Shop Amazon for items related to this movie. Shop for movie posters at AllPosters

"The Stepford Wives" Review:

          Nicole Kidman stars in this more comedic remake of the 1975 film The Stepford Wives. After losing her job as the president of a reality TV network, Joanna Eberhard has a total breakdown and looking for a change of scenery her family moves from Manhattan to Stepford, Connecticut. Joanna is instantly suspicious of her neighbors; the husbands are nerds and slops while the wives are beautiful slaves. Trying to keep her marriage alive, Joanna tries to quell her suspicions, but after her two friends fall to the cookie cutter doom of the Stepford wives, Joanna realizes that the husbands are turning their wives into compliant robots. Will she be next?

          I haven't seen the 1975 version of The Stepford Wives, but my question still remains… why make a remake, 1975 wasn't THAT long ago! I'm not usually against remakes, with time and technology some films grow outdated rather quickly, but I don't think that was the case for this movie.

          As I understand it, the 1975 version was a horror film (I don't understand how that worked out), and this is the comedic remake. That is this Stepford's problem, it's tonally fklempt. It's not funny enough to be a comedy, not scary enough to be a horror picture, there's a 'surprise' ending, but it's not thrilling enough to be a suspense film, and it's just not good enough to be a classic. This is a movie without an identity; if it's a comedy it needs to be funnier, if it's a horror it needs to be scarier, it just doesn't have a tone and that makes it hard to enjoy.

The original Stepford Wives was a satire because at that time wives were expected to be 'Stepford wives' because those were the gender roles. In this version, the husbands make their wives robots because the wives are better than them at everything and they're jealous. 2004's Stepford is therefore more of a satire for men, but by all accounts it's a chick flick. More tone problems.

On the positive side, Stepford does have its funny moments. Director Frank Oz does a respectable job and the cast is very good. Nicole Kidman is a gorgeous and talented actress who could save even the worst of films from bombing. Matthew Broderick, who will always be Ferris Bueller, does a great job as Kidman's husband. He probably drew a little bit from his own marriage now that Sarah Jessica Parker is (probably) a bigger star than him.

My personal favorites though are Christopher Walken, who has the greatest speaking voice in the world, and Roger Bart, as Roger Bannister (a new character to this film) a gay man so flamboyant that his partner has him made into a robot. Bette Midler continues to annoy me more with every film I see her in, but Glenn Close gives an okay but very overdone performance as Walken's wife.

The Bottom Line is that The Stepford Wives is a tone deaf disappointment. With such a great cast, and such great trailers, I was expecting more. Stepford hits on a few insightful jokes into the battle of the sexes, but uses mainly flowery costumes and opulent scenery to provide its scattered laughs. It's by no means a bad movie, it just isn't memorable or special at all.