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Title: The Stepford Wives (2004)
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| 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 | |
Joanna Eberhart, a wildly successful 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 acerbic 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? Written by Miguel Cane <stepford@yahoo.com>
I wasn't expecting too much from this movie, given the reviews it got. But how bad could a movie be with this cast? As it turns out, VERY bad. But I have to think that some plot and character development was lost on the cutting room floor.
The opening credit sequence is absolutely brilliant, with witty use of vintage '50s clips of housewives in their "miracle kitchens of the future" and that sort of thing. Deliberately choppy editing and occasionally speeded up action lend the sequence a mechanical feel on top of its satirical air. Too bad nothing else in the movie measures up to it.
I did think there were a couple of decent laughs, mainly when Glenn Close was on screen. Roger Bart, playing a gay stereotype we've seen too many times in recent movies, milks it for all its worth and earns some chuckles, too. But Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick often seem lost. Christopher Walken, Bette Midler and Jon Lovitz are all mostly boring here, hard as it is to believe.
I haven't seen the '70s version in ages, but I remember thinking it was OK but campier than it was meant to be. Upping the camp level was not a bad idea for the remake, but I don't know what happened with the screenplay. Paul Rudnick is no genius, but he's done far better.
I get the feeling that major scenes must have been cut out for some reason, as the plot development felt awkward especially in the early scenes. It might be worth renting the DVD for the deleted scenes.
Also, as others have stated, the movie is totally inconsistent on the point of whether the women are robots or have simply had their brains altered. It's as if they figured we wouldn't really be playing close attention, so what difference did it make?
My bottom line advice -- if you get a chance to see it without paying, watch the opening credits and then change the channel.