Welcome back to Stepford
by David Hontiveros

Like Keanu in bullet time, Nicole Kidman is dodging bullets as fast as they come.

An injury on the Moulin Rouge set forced her to bow out of David Fincher's Panic Room, which, along with The Game, turned out to be one of Fincher's least notable works. She was also supposed to star in Jane Campion's artily-shot but horribly flawed adaptation of In The Cut; Kidman remained co-producer, even as Meg Ryan ended up in the buff for the role.
At certain points in their development, Kidman was also attached to star in last year's Catwoman and The Forgotten, the less said of both, I believe, the better. Instead, for 2004, she starred in Jonathan Glazer's Birth, and Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives. And though neither was a box-office hit, either one was certainly better than The Forgotten, and, from all I've heard about it, Catwoman as well.

The review for Birth should appear in close proximity to this issue, but for now, we take a look back at The Stepford Wives, in time for its release on original VCD.

The Stepford Wives was originally a novel written by Ira Levin, the same man who gave the world Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski's film adaptation of which, in turn, gave us the enduring, indelible image of a frail, paranoid Mia Farrow, painfully pregnant with the Devil's child, on the run from a cult of Satanists. The Stepford Wives was no less frightening, though here, the terror was not supernatural, but rather stemmed from the realm of science.

A work that studied the horrors of conformity (for which the term "Stepford" has come to mean, informally joining the English language as an adjective), The Stepford Wives had a film adaptation in 1975. Directed by Bryan Forbes, that version delved more into the horror aspect of the tale. Frank Oz's version is, at first blush, a lighter, more comedic look at the material.
Career-driven network president Joanna Eberhart (Kidman) is suddenly and unceremoniously fired after an unfortunate incident during the unveiling of EBS' new season line-up. Following a nervous breakdown, she asks for a chance to start over with her husband Walter Kresby (Matthew Broderick) and their two children Kimberly and Pete. Off they go to the suburbs of Connecticut, to the exclusive community of Stepford, where all is not what it seems.

From its opening credit roll, accompanied by visuals from old adverts of the latest in modern technology, of products designed to make life easier and more convenient, it's evident that behind the comedic veneer of the film, there are some serious statements to be made, just as there is something deeper behind the Tupperware smiles of the eponymous Stepford wives.
In that respect, as well as its overt idea of a return to a simpler time-- in Stepford, there is "no crime, no poverty, and no pushing"-- it is similar to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. (Incidentally enough, both are quite possibly last year's most misunderstood and underappreciated films.) But, whereas Shymalan never loses track of his narrative while aiming to get his Message across, Stepford's script by Paul Rudnick seems both weak in its rhythm, and genuinely confused as to the exact nature of the change the women undergo, not to mention rudely dismissive of Joanna's children, who are no sooner introduced, before they completely drop off the face of the film, mentioned thereafter, but never actually seen.
While the Stepford process in the original source material is pretty much straight-forward, in Oz's revision, there is talk of nanochips being inserted into the brain, chips which contain the Stepford program, which should mean these women are still organic after being "perfected" by the treatment. And yet we are treated to the sight of an eyeless and bald mannequin that is Kidman's dead ringer, as well as the ATM sequence (the single most chilling and disturbing visual from the entire film); both incongruous and illogical, if these are really still women with some computer chips stuck in their heads.

Given though that the narrative could have been stronger, the idea of perfection taken to its extreme, of the forced submission and commodification of women-- of a wife as the ultimate consumer product, complete with personalized remote control-- is difficult to ignore. Amidst the scathingly funny one-liners are harsh observations of the gender wars, of, to paraphrase the film, women wanting to become men, and men wanting to become gods.

Arguably, the reversal that comes at the film's climax might be seen, on the one hand, as a clever little reference to the third sequel of the 1975 version. On the other hand though, it could actually subvert the whole piece in one fell swoop, reducing the entire idea of homogenizing the world into the Stepford ideal as a plan born of lunacy, and not a cold, calculated conspiracy.

Whichever the case, this version of Levin's novel, with its wistful, pastel nostalgia for days long gone by, is funny. The script has zingy wit and irony to spare, and with a cast that includes Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Roger Bart, and Glenn Close, the comic timing is near-perfect.

By and large, it's sad and ironic that the film doesn't live up to the Stepford ideal, and isn't the perfect movie it could have been. But then again, as Joanna says, perfect doesn't work. In this case though, imperfect doesn't exactly work, either.

Panned by the critics, by turns confused and narratively-challenged, The Stepford Wives is nonetheless a funny comedy, and has quite a lot to say about men and women, and the world they live in, and if only for that, must be seen. (And honestly, a couple of years down the road, should I find The Stepford Wives and The Forgotten both on cable at the same time, I know which film I'd zap myself to with the remote. Do you?)

The Stepford Wives is available on original VCD from MagnaVision.