Hey folks, Harry here with our first review of THE STEPFORD WIVES which sounds intriguing. The review isn't entirely positive, and there are spoilers below -- and yes if you've seen the original, these are STILL SPOILERS as this is different from the original film. The film is months away from coming out, so realize this is their first screening to get a grasp of where they are... sounds like it still has work to be done, but it sounds like Frank Oz has done a good job with a great cast. Here ya go...
Yo Harry,
Just now got back from a screening, the first anywhere they said, of the Stepford Wives.
This is a remake of the 1970's classic, which was itself an adaptation of Ira Levin's classic novel about a perfect little town where the husbands get up to shenanigans. It's Bachelor Party with robots.
Alas, all is still not well in Stepford when our heroine, Nicole Kidman enters with her shlubby husband, Matthew Broderick and her children.
This time, the character being fitted for the Cuisenart dress is a TV exec who has a breakdown after she's fired and finds out her husband is having an affair with her secretary all in the same morning.
Her hubbie decides to move them to the idyllic little town of Stepford to start over.
The movie's tone is very different than the original. This one almost starts out as a comedy, with zany sterotypes the Jewish writer, (played by Bette Midler) and the gay guy, etc.
While this version has as many teeth as a soup sucking denizen of an old age home, it does get in its shots, but the subtext is unclear...is it talking about Feminism? American Excess? Couplehood? The movie isn't even sure it seems, as it runs around trying to cover all bases. It wants to be dark, but funny, and also goofy, but serious.
One of the films greatest successes is the special effects: the few times the supporting characters exhibit their roboticness is funny AND disturbing, because they move like MACHINES should and that's scary.
But we were shown what HAD to be an alternate ending. See, first we wind up, as in the original, with the main character, post-robot, in a supermarket, along with all her new robot pals (actually, they are no longer robots in the story. The brain is extracted, placed in a robotic body, with some extra chips to make 'em act right. Problem is, most of the wives were apparently so perfect looking to begin with, you wonder why they needed new bodies. Seems the brain augmentation thing would be enough.)
Anyhoo, when I saw what I ASSUMED was the ending, I thought to myself "self, it may not be as good as the original, but it was fun and a nice bit of satire." Then it kept going...and going.
We were treated to a BS Hollywood ending where it turns out that Broderick and Nicole were putting the wool over everyone's eyes and manage to sneak into the lair of the nefarious Mike (Chris Walken, fine as ever) and free all the ladies, who are only a little miffed about being transplanted into robotic bodies and being used as beer coolers. I kid not.
And it goes on and on, with twists I won't bother telling you about, not because their spoliers, but because they're stupid.
This might not be the ending they go with. The soundtrack behind it was the theme from Edward Scissorhands, so I can only guess this was a test of sorts.
I will mention one thing: the supermarket ending is played out again, this time with the shlubby husbands doing the shopping. A Rhodes Scholar behind me said "A perfect world...where men always do the shopping." That's when the real subtext of the movie, or at least what it SHOULD have been, hit me: when people fantasize about the perfect partner, they tend to fantasize about a slave.
It's too bad the movie was so muddy that (apparantly) the point was lost.
Call me ONE HAND CLAPPING...
cuz thats my name.
