“The Stepford Wives” (Paramount Pictures)
Back in the seventies there was a classically comical little horror film titled “The Stepford Wives.” It was a black comedy that caught the imagination of the nation and became a cult favorite. Now it has been updated to the present time and filmed again starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler.
Kidman plays Joanna Eberhard, a tough television executive who gets dumped by her network. This leads her to suffer a nervous breakdown and to totally re-evaluate her life. Her husband Walter (Broderick) suggests a move to a new town and she agrees. They end up in Stepford, Connecticut.
In Stepford, Joanna discovers that all the women are beautiful and subservient. All except Bobbie Markowitz (Midler), a renegade writer with a shlumpy husband (Jon Lovitz). Joanna and Bobbie team up with a man named Roger Bannister (Roger Bart) who is the significant other of another nondescript Stepford male. They resolve to solve the mystery of this “perfect” town.
Claire Wellington and her husband Mike (Glenn Close and Christopher Walken) are the leaders of Stepford society. She is the perfect Stepford wife and he is the man behind the mystery. Together they spell trouble for Joanna, Bobbie and Roger.
The movie has some biting one-liners that pepper the script, but the overall effect of the movie is tacky. By this I mean that parts of the movie seemed to have been tacked on with no idea of what went before, or what would follow. The ending is a perfect example. It completely ignores scenes that have preceded it. It appears to be “ending by committee.” A screening audience obviously did not like the original ending so they tacked on a new one – and it is a lousy one at that.
The acting is okay. Kidman is funny and fetching in a neurotic way. Midler is playing a one-joke character and she does it the same way she has done it a hundred times before. Broderick is blander than he is even supposed to be. Close is close to perfect in her role while Walken is weird as is his forte’. Poor Faith Hill makes her big screen debut in a nothing role that gets only a teeny bit of screen time..
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and mild violence.
It is amazing Nicole Kidman would follow up her roles in “The Hours” and “Cold Mountain” with this bit of fluff. She deserves better and so does the audience. The same can be said of Midler and Close.
The best advice concerning this film is to skip the remake and go home and rent the original. It has comedy and bite – and Katherine Ross looking dreamy.
I scored “The Stepford Wives” an unliberated 4 out of 10.
