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The Stepford Wives While many of us have never seen the original, we have heard about it, so how will The Stepford Wives be updated for a new generation? By only telling us half the story. Nicole Kidman stars as Joanna - the President of a major television network who loses her job. Losing this position of power, wealth and status drives Joanna crazy, so her husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick), decides to pick up the family and move them into the serene, picturesque Stepford, CT, a town with, "no crime, no poverty and no pushing." While Joanna is recovering and having trouble adjusting to her new idyllic suburban life, Walter finds refuge at the mysterious Stepford Men's Club. Slowly, as Joanna starts to meet the strange inhabitants of this town, populated by beautiful dumb blonde women obsessed with happy homemaking and their far-from-perfect nerdy husbands, she realizes something is very wrong. What is Stepford's secret? Does Walter know? If you are one of those people who don't know Stepford's big secret, stop reading after I tell you this movie gets 2 Waffles. For the rest of us, who are familiar with The Stepford Wives, let's talk turkey. This film is like me asking a woman out on date. It's trying very hard and seems to be on the verge of success, but it ends in disaster no matter how earnest the approach may be. For a movie that seems to have been edited and re-edited, it needs a little more work (see if you can catch the scenes that don't quite go together, or look like they have been split in two and used in different parts of the film). We know Stepford's big secret, and it's like the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the room that no one wants to acknowledge. Since we know all of the women have been turned into robots, Director Frank Oz and writer Paul Rudnick miss out on a opportunity to have some fun with it. I know you are thinking that not everyone knows, but I think The Stepford Wives is one of those movies that is embedded into the popular consciousness whether or not people have seen the original or read the book. While placating the idea and hope that the robot twist will be a huge, shocking revelation, and focusing on Joanna's pursuit of the truth, Oz and Rudnick fail to establish many aspects of the movie that would help make it more suspenseful and surprising. We should learn more about Walter's state of mind, see the marriage falling apart, let Walter explain his feelings of inferiority earlier in the movie, and watch the men of Stepford charm him into the club via brainwashing and playing on his feelings. All of this would go a long way towards understanding why this devoted husband would be willing to turn his wife into a robot. By showing this, along side Joanna's search for the truth, Oz could have established some dramatic tension and built to a climax where Walter has to choose between the woman he married and the robot she could become, while leaving us wondering if Joanna can find out the truth in time. Along with this failure in storytelling, Oz has troubles establishing the movie's tone. When it's a dark comedy, The Stepford Wives has a wicked sense of humor that will have you howling, especially when Glenn Close is shown as the slightly off-kilter Martha Stewart-like uber-suburban housewife with fantastic timing and Midler is the wacky liberal feminist torchbearer on the edge of losing it. However, Oz drops this tone to make the film into a more traditional horror/suspense film, but, when you know the big secret, you have nothing to fear and no mystery to solve. Worst of all, the actors' performances are impacted by this mixed tone. Kidman has trouble finding Joanna's center, personality and soul. She seems to be trying too hard to be the dynamic, take no prisoners leader when her character is on top, she's not despondent enough when the character is depressed, and not surprised enough when Joanna finds out the big secret (and, in one those examples of horrible editing, seems to know the big secret before she is told or has a moment of revelation, oops!). I think Kidman is a great actress, so I am going to put some blame on Oz for her performance. Left to wonder if this is a dark comedy or a thriller or a horror movie, she has to guess how to approach the scene, and that leads to an uneven performance. She doesn't get off the hook entirely because she struggles to convey the chosen tone for the scene, and lacks the screen presence that we know and love. With more details, more plot development, a consistent tone, and a better examination of everyone's motives, The Stepford Wives could have been a winner. Instead, it's a half decent film that misses the mark. 2 Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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