(spoilers)
2004, the era of PMS (Post-Martha Stewart) seems ripe for a dark-edged satire of sex roles like Ira Levin's 'The Stepford Wives', filtered through three decades of suburban flight, backlashes against feminist backlashes, and rampant consumerism fed by fear of almost everything. Add to that, Levin's story added a distinct layer of body-horror and phobic preoccupation with cleanliness which Bryan Forbes's original 1975 adaptation cleverly exploited---in its honey-glowed cinematography and women whose flowered dresses melted into the black hole of a sun, the whole film played like the most horrific deodorant commercial imaginable. The safest of suburban retreats (perfectly manicured gardens and gleamingly clean supermarkets) became threatening vistas of unease. It was dark-humored, but at its core, it was pure horror played out in sunny kitchens and picket fences---the diary of a mad housewife gone animatronic. It's an unnerving, underrated classic, up there with Kaufman's 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' remake as a dystopic vision of modern society kept under control through homicidal identity-theft.
Zombified, robotized suburbanites who compulsively yearn for an unthreatening social structure regardless of the cost? G.W. Bush's America is the looking-glass realization of these visions, where the importance of appearance and the desire for a simple, uncomplicated society override the messiness of social pluralism and whatever else lies beyond the cul-de-sac's driveway. Overseen by a biting satirist like John Waters, a 'Stepford' remake might have had a chance at exploiting the inherent irony of updating this story to 2004, despite Waters's propensity for narrative crudeness. Or perhaps the two Todds might have succeeded at mining the rich potential in upping the story's ante in an era fueled by SUVs and internet shopping; either Solondz's malcontent nastiness or Haynes's tone-perfect genre revisionism would have served the concept well.
What we get is Frank Oz and scenarist Paul Rudnick who offer up a remake of sorts but the results are a very distant echo from the 1975 original. The emphasis is funny---not satire or sneaky-but-horrific funny---but broad, cartoon-speed funny. In this version, Joanna is transformed from a housewife/photographer to a show biz exec who is punished with expulsion after one of her reality show participants goes postal at a network meeting.
Joanna and her nebbishy husband (Matthew Broderick, duller than wet crackers) and their nondescript children move to Stepford where everything is 'House Beautiful'-perfect (although it's more perfect in an art-directed way than a suburban fantasy way, a further symptom of the film's cartoonishness). The tired, disheveled Joanna doesn't belong and her displacement is underscored when she bonds with two other outsiders, newcomers Bobbie (Bette Midler, funny but criminally underutilized) and Roger (Roger Bart as a swishy gay sweater queen---one could make the argument that the film contradicts whatever message it's offering about respecting individual differences by throwing in such a creaky stereotype, but since he's probably a stand-in for writer Rudnick, we'll give this plot point a pass). Joanna and company uncover the real reason behind the townswomen's preternatural obedience, sexual satisfaction with their nerdy husbands and preoccupation with home decorating. In the Martha/Queer Eye/Trading Places age of media-directed home improvement, it's hard to tell this is supposed to be so astounding but it's not the least of the film's failings that these contradictions and ironies aren't confronted.
It's confounding as to what Oz and Rudnick were trying to accomplish with this remake. The basic scenario is too unnerving (or unnervingly real in light of contemporary mores) to function as a light comedy but that's exactly what the filmmakers serve up---the actors are given characters void of motivation or nuance, but are encouraged to play those non-characters at maximum speed and volume which after an hour of non-development, becomes unbearable to watch. Kidman might have survived had she been given the original Goldman script to work with, but with little help from Rudnick or Oz, she's left flailing; Joanna in the remake might have made sense if she had been a failure as a housewife or openly disdainful of the expectations placed on her as a newly minted suburban mom in a harshly lemon-pledged suburban hell. As it is, Joanna's mildly resentful of not fitting in, and there are one or two poorly drawn 'should we stay or should we go' arguments between her and Broderick's character. The 1975 film portrayed Joanna as a character skating along the borders of paranoia, persecution and uncorroborated suspicion---all that's now gone, replaced by a gimmicky comedic tone that goes for cheap laughs and blows the film's housewives-as-robots conceit in the first act. Midler and Bart are at least able to run with the film's Wile e. Coyote/Roadrunner comedic tone, but the film's weightlessness and inconsequence eventually swallows them up along with pros like Glenn Close and Chris Walken (proof that hiring an experienced, expensive cast can't save a bad script). Who needs character development and suspense where there's yucks to be had?
'The Stepford Wives' (1975), while not a perfect film, was willing to peer into some dark and heady fantasies of identity displacement and suburban discontent in a era of shifting sex roles. Behind the perfect homes and pretty lawns was an unnervingly prescient look at the disappointment and anomie behind an impossibly idealized existence. 'The Stepford Wives' (2004) is an empty, soulless, mechanical film that, while technically accomplished, smacks of film-making-by-committee.
Maybe it was made by the droids from the first film
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