The Stepford Wives (2004)

What does it take to become a Stepford wife, a woman perfect beyond belief? Ask the Stepford husbands, who've created this high-tech terrifying little town, in a very modern comedy-thriller.

Director:

Frank Oz

Writers:

Ira Levin (book), Paul Rudnick (screenplay)

Stars:

Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler

3 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Nicole Kidman	...	Joanna Eberhart
Matthew Broderick	...	Walter Kresby
Bette Midler	...	Bobbie Markowitz
Glenn Close	...	Claire Wellington
Christopher Walken	...	Mike Wellington
Roger Bart	...	Roger Bannister
David Marshall Grant	...	Jerry Harmon
Jon Lovitz	...	Dave Markowitz
Dylan Hartigan	...	Pete Kresby
Fallon Brooking	...	Kimberly Kresby
Faith Hill	...	Sarah Sunderson
Matt Malloy	...	Herb Sunderson
Kate Shindle	...	Beth Peters
Tom Riis Farrell	...	Stan Peters
Lorri Bagley	...	Charmaine Van Sant

Storyline

Joanna Eberhart, a wildly succesful president of a TV Network, after a series of shocking events suffers a nervous breakdown and is moved by her milquetoast of a husband, Walter, from Manhattan to the chic, upper-class and very modern planned community of Stepford, Connecticut. Once there, she makes good friends with the ascerbic Bobbie Markowitz, a jewish writer who's also a recovering alcoholic. Together they find out, much to their growing stupor and-then horror, that all the housewives in town are strangely blissful, and somehow... doomed. What is going on behind the closed doors of the Stepford Men's Association and the Stepford Day Spa? Why is everything perfect here? Will it be too late for Joanna and Bobbie when they finally find out?

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Plot Keywords:

writer | community | connecticut | television | fired from the job | 

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Taglines:

Make one.

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Genres:

Comedy | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, thematic material and language

Details

Official Sites:

Paramount Pictures UIP [br]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 June 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Las mujeres perfectas

Filming Locations:

Bedminster, New Jersey, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$90,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$134,506 (South Africa) (29 October 2004)

Gross:

$268,694 (South Africa) (12 November 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, Scott Rudin Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Bette Midler's character wears a T-shirt of the British hard-rock band Deep Purple (the Mk II line-up) that depicts their "Perfect Strangers" album & tour of 1984/5.

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Goofs

When Roger, Bobbie and Joanna are at the bottom of the stairs in Sarah's house, their positions change between scenes.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Helen Devlin: Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to introduce a legend in our industry. She's the most successful president in the history of our network and for the past five years has kept us at the very top of the ratings.

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Crazy Credits

The opening credits are presented in a cursive script font rather than regular block letters. The letters alternate "flashing" on and off, mimicing machine lights.

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Connections

Featured in Stepford: A Definition (2004)

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Soundtracks

"It Might as Well Be Spring"
(1945)
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Performed by The Arthur Murray Orchestra
Courtesy of the RCA-Records Label
Under License from BMG Film & TV Music

User Reviews

What an awful flop!

I very rarely write comments here about films I didn't enjoy but this is different. This film boasts a cast that will be pulling people in cinemas. My advice is: don't bother. It's just the most boring, predictable, badly planned and executed piece of celluloid I've ever seen. It's as if Frank Oz had a good idea but got bored half-way through realising it. I haven't seen the original but surely the actors who got involved in this read the script of the remake? They can't have based their participation on the Seventies film, surely. Because the 2004 remake is full of awful cliches, bad jokes (OK, there are a couple of good lines but that's about it) and it is so empty of ideas that it makes you want to shout to the screen. If the actors playing in this film were unknowns there is NO WAY anyone would have gone to see it. It's just a parade of famous names (some good actors, some average) that sleepwalk through a dreadful script. It can't even become a cult classic - it's THAT average. 1/10 for me and that's being lenient.