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THE STEPFORD WIVES Send This Review to a Friend
I’m in the minority on this one, judging from the carping that has been going on, but I find “The Stepford Wives” remake amusing. Yes, it is kind of slapped together and strained as it gets to the climax, but there are some sharp lines in Paul Rudnick’s satirical screenplay and several entertaining performances. Besides, I find Nicole Kidman a joy to watch even in a second rate role. Bette Midler is good for laughs, Glenn Close is fun as she goes from excessive sweetness to hysteria and Christopher Walker is comically menacing.
My memories of the original are not all that positive. This version, emphasizing humor more than horror, is easy to take. There is a funny opening in which Kidman as Joanna Eberhart, a highly successful television network head, unveils outrageous reality shows due for the coming season. After one leads to murder, she is fired, and it is wonderful to watch Kidman’s face convey her emotions without her uttering a word, going from disbelief, to concealed hurt, to an effort not to show it. A nervous breakdown later, she is being taken for recovery to the gated town of Stepford in Connecticut by her husband, Walter, a basically bland role played accordingly by Matthew Broderick.
Joanna is the skeptic who is puzzled by the docile homebody lives of the women of Stepford. In this version microchips are implanted in the brains of the women so they are thoroughly controllable. The results tend to be funny rather than frightening, and Rudnick’s script, based on the novel by Ira Levin, spoofs the desire of men to have wives who are beautiful, sexy and robotic. Midler plays Bobbie Markowitz, the odd Jewish woman in the town, who is fast with the quips, and Midler as always, is a scene stealer. Roger Bart is amusing as a gay in the crowd.
Problems come as the plot has to be worked out and director Frank Oz must struggle, as screenwriter Rudnick must have struggled to make everything come together as rapidly as possible, but even so, there is mirth in the upheaval that Walter launches. By this time, we have also watched Kidman go through several phases with her character, and that’s a pleasure in itself. “The Stepford Wives” is hardly an accomplished or important film. But the performances and the spoofing earn a reasonable amount of laughter. A Paramount Pictures release.
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