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'Stepford Wives' a step down
Thursday, Jun 10, 2004 - 09:59:53 pm CDT
BYL. KENTWOLGAMOTT
The makers and stars of "The Stepford Wives" really wanted to turn the 1975 suburban horror picture based on Ira Levin's best-selling novel into a black comedy. Wanting and doing, however, are two different things.
A troubled production, "The Stepford Wives" made the news for needing reshootings to hone the movie's plot. Some pictures can be fixed like that, but such announcements are never a good sign. While "TheStepford Wives" makes sense, it is never quite laugh-out-loud funny or remotely close to scary.
Instead, it is a hit-and-miss black comedy that is trying to satirize female roles, male expectations, etc., but never quite connects.
The story stays somewhat faithful to the original. Fired from her network after a reality show goes way wrong, high-strung TV executive Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is convinced by her husband, Walter Kresby (Matthew Broderick), to move from New York to a beautiful home in the carefully manicured suburb of Stepford, Conn.
The first person to greet them is Realtor, town leader and perpetually cheerful and perfect Claire Wellington (GlennClose), who sells them a house, then tries to integrate the reluctant Joanna into the town's society.
Dressed in NYCblack, cynical Joanna's out of place with the town's sweet, smiling wives, all in brightly colored dresses. She does find an ally in Roberta "Bobbi" Markowitz (Bette Midler), a best-selling, binge-eating author similarly sentenced to the suburbs to cure what ails her.
Together, they explore the town's female culture, finding it weirder and weirder. Meanwhile, Walter and Bobbi's gross husband, David (JonLovitz), find themselves welcomed into the town's all-male club by Mike Wellington (Christopher Walken), Claire's husband and the man who can help them turn Bobbi and Joanna into the perfect Stepford wives.
That, of course, was the scary part of the original film and is supposed to be the hinge for the comedy.But this version of "The Stepford Wives" works best early, when Joanna and Bobbi have to react to their bizarre zombiefied neighbors and the odd goings-on in the community - like a square dance.
That little step back into the rural past seems like an out-of-place stretch and the men's club and women's dress and behavior seem like something out of the '50s, '60s or '70s rather than contemporary times. If the point of "The Stepford Wives" is that our expectations for male and female behavior may or may not have changed, I guess it works.But that's not much of a point, and there certainly aren't many laughs to go along with it - even with the inclusion of a gay couple to prove that expectations are the same in all relationships.
There is certainly some campiness; that's a certain coming from writer Paul Rudnick. But once that wears thin, the comedy isn't quite dark enough to be satisfying to lovers of true black comedy and simultaneously misses the mainstream.
That's not really the fault of the cast. Kidman puts up a good fight, Midler is blowsy and entertaining, and Close goes into her over-the-top comedy act she perfected as Cruella DeVil in "101 Dalmatians." Lovitz, for once, is perfectly cast, and so is the creepy Walken.But Broderick is blander than usual, adding little to the picture.
Director Frank Oz, who is capable of true hilarity (see "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "In & Out"), has made a sturdy film. But it's a picture with no flair and no sense for subversion - a necessary ingredient for any satire/black comedy to succeed.
In its opening scenes in New York, "The Stepford Wives" seems to be on the right track.But after a little while in Connecticut, it feels like Oz and company got Stepfordized right along with the characters, delivering a slightly stiff, never-close-to-real picture rather than a comedy with some dark bite.
Reach L.Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@;journalstar.com.
The Stepford Wives
H½
Director: Frank Oz
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken
Rated: PG-13 (for sexual content, thematic material, language)
Now Showing: Cinema, East Park
The Reel Story: This attempt to remake the 1975 suburban horror classic into a dark comedy is hit-and-miss at best despite good work from its female stars.
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