Movie Review: The Stepford Wives

I have to admit, if hindsight is really 20/20, well, I really did have some good teachers in high school and college. When I go back and realize the stuff they subjected me to, it was, in all actuality--quite good stuff. I mean, I had to read The Catcher in the Rye, and at first, my teenage brain came up with the ever deep response of:

"It was weird."

Low and behold, I've reread it and there is so much, much more. Same with the other works they had me work through. King Lear. The Thief of Time. Some really good stuff, yo, very respectable.

Even the Stepford Wives. Yes, I had to read the book for my gender awareness ( I did get an A, folks, which is kinda ironic. I mean, I'm queer, people would think I would need as much gender awareness as I could get!) class. The book had already been made into a cheesy (by today's standards) television horror flick. But I remembered the book and it's author. I later saw Deathtrap ("my God, Superman's GAY!) and was really impressed with its humor/horror contrivances.

I wish I could say the same now.

The Stepford Wives is not a good movie. Oh sure, as the cliche goes, the book was good.

But that's about it.

A bevy of great people seemed to have gotten together to make it, but here's the proof, people, you really have to have a good story. This was written by someone who wrote two of my favorites--The Addams Family and Addams Family Values--Paul Rudnick. But the milieu there worked to his advantage. He had the dark, spooky, undefined family. They loved each other in their own way, regardless of what the world at large thought. In this format he was critiquing the American image of the family with great effect. He showed that love is the drive in making a family, not the nuclear format so prized by the right these days.

And it was evident that we was trying to relive his old glory days with this picture. Here we have another send up of the definition of the family. The one liners are truly zingers, but you know? There really isn't much story other than that. The movie builds the mystery of a small Connitecut town where all the women are exactly how Emperor Bush wants them by public decree.

Of course, Rudnick, however, doesn't go that route. Instead, he makes a bunch of caricatures (Bette Midler, wasted, as a the token Jewish member with her equally chunky husband; Matthew Broderick, also wasted, as the milquetoast hubby...HELLO? Why does he marry an overbearing maven if he wants to change her?) go through the motions. They don't interact in as much as they are just typing up funny bits.

You see, Nicole Kidman was once this big name television producer who works for an evil television station that makes even more evil programming. Of course, for some reason, when one contestant goes a bit crazy, she gets fired. Um, what? The station appears to have producing this drek for years, but we just needed to get her to move, I'm supposing?

Then her husband, who merely sleeps next to her, nor shows any liking of her (maybe it was the money?) decides she needs to calm down a bit and takes her into the secret society of the Stepford men. You know, make her into a subservient robot. Of course, they show how's it's done--with a microchip in the brain--but for some reason, there's a naked clone robot (who's eyes open with much fanfare) on the table. It then disappears.

Um, what? Are you getting this? It worked in the book, no microchips at all. Not here.

Why not go with the fact that this is the kind of town Bush is espousing in so much of his retoric? That Reagan had lived there for a spell perhaps? He injects a queer couple, but doesn't even use them. They just make the one fey gay man more masculine.

There's also something that should be said about pacing. The movie moves, like, really, really well. I'm guessing editing. But then, once Nicole and Matt head into the bowels of the "Stepford Society," the movie rushes to completion. It's as if the producers knew the film was really crappy and just wanted to end the whole mess.

Sad, really, because the book was so, so much better. Maybe someone should have taken them underneath the studio of Paramount and replaced the filmmakers with ones who had a better idea of what they are doing. With or without a robot.