The Stepford Wives is a 2004 American science-fiction horror comedy film. It was directed by Frank Oz from a screenplay by Paul Rudnick and stars Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill and Glenn Close. The film is a remake of the 1975 film of the same title; both films are based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives. The remake grossed $102 million worldwide on a $90 million budget.
Video The Stepford Wives (2004 film)
Plot
Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is a successful reality television executive producer. With her husband Walter (Matthew Broderick) and their two children, they move from Manhattan to Stepford, a quiet Connecticut suburb.
Joanna becomes friends with Bobbie Markowitz (Bette Midler), a writer and recovering alcoholic, and Roger Bannister (Roger Bart), a flamboyant gay man who has moved to town with his long-time partner, Jerry (David Marshall Grant). Joanna, Bobbie and Roger witness an incident in which Sarah Sunderson (Faith Hill), violently dances and then collapses.
Joanna argues with Walter about the incident with Sarah. He tells her that her children barely know her, that their marriage is falling apart, and that she is so domineering that people literally want to kill her.
They quickly return downstairs to hide, and they find a remote control labeled SARAH. While playing with it, they inadvertently cause Sarah's breasts to enlarge before she falls on the staircase behind them. The Stepford women appear extremely vapid and shallow; in the Stepford book club, their story is a catalogue of Christmas and Chanukah collectibles and decoration tips.
Stepford hosts a formal ball. During the festivities, Joanna distracts Mike and entices him into the garden while Walter slips away. Walter returns to the transformation room where he destroys the software that makes the women obedient. Walter returns to the ball, where the baffled husbands are cornered by their vengeful wives. Mike threatens Walter, but before Mike can attack, Joanna hits Mike with a candlestick, decapitating him and revealing that he is a robot, and not even partially biological.
Claire explains that she created Stepford because she, too, was a bitter, career-minded woman; in her case, a tired brain surgeon. When she discovered that Mike was having an affair with her research assistant Patricia, she murdered them in a jealous rage. When Joanna wonders aloud why Claire did not simply make the men into cyborgs, she replies that she planned to turn the whole community into cyborgs. Claire then electrocutes herself by kissing Mike's severed robotic head.
Six months later, Larry King is interviewing Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger, with Walter also in attendance. They have all met with success; Joanna has made a documentary, Bobbie has written a book of poetry, and Roger broke up with Jerry and won his State Senate seat as a liberal Independent. Before ending the interview, King asks about the fate of the other husbands of Stepford. Bobbie reveals that they are being retrained back in Connecticut. The closing scene of the film reveals that the irate wives have taken over Stepford and forced their husbands to atone for their crimes by placing them under house arrest.
Maps The Stepford Wives (2004 film)
Cast
- Nicole Kidman as Joanna Eberhart
- Matthew Broderick as Walter Kresby
- Bette Midler as Bobbie Markowitz
- Christopher Walken as Mike Wellington
- Glenn Close as Claire Wellington
- Roger Bart as Roger Bannister
- Faith Hill as Sarah Sunderson
- Jon Lovitz as Dave Markowitz
- Matt Malloy as Herb Sunderson
- David Marshall Grant as Jerry Harmon
- Kate Shindle as Beth Peters
- Lorri Bagley as Charmaine Van Sant
- Robert Stanton as Ted Van Sant
- Mike White as Hank
- KaDee Strickland as Tara
- Larry King as Himself
- Meredith Vieira as host of Balance of Power
- Billy Bush as host of I Can Do Better
Production
Reportedly, there were problems on-set between director Frank Oz and stars Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Glenn Close and Roger Bart. In a 2003 interview, Oz stated "Tension on the set? Absolutely! In every movie I do, there's tension. That's the whole point. And working people hard, that's exactly what they expect me to do... Bette has been under a lot of stress lately... She made the mistake of bringing her stress on the set."
In a 2007 interview with Ain't It Cool News, Oz's take on the film was "I had too much money, and I was too responsible and concerned for Paramount. I was too concerned for the producers. And I didn't follow my instincts... I'm very proud of many aspects of the movie. The people were great. But when you sense that there's no governing thought, or that the governing thought is kind of 'Gee, I'm not sure where to go,' you can sense it... My instincts were saying, 'Don't do a big movie'. I had a very strong viewpoint to do the movie, but I didn't expect such huge stars. When the stars came, everything kind of ballooned up... I should have brought it all down and said, 'I'm sorry, I know we have all these huge stars but I don't care, I want to do something intimate.' But I didn't, I went with the bigness of it and I didn't feel right about it."
In a 2005 interview, Matthew Broderick stated, "Making that film wasn't enjoyable. It was nobody's fault, but my part was not terribly interesting... It was not a thrilling film. I would hate it if it were my last."
The majority of the film was shot in Darien, New Canaan, and Norwalk, Connecticut.
Reception
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 26%, based on 171 reviews with an average rating of 4.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "In exchanging the chilling satire of the original into mindless camp, this remake has itself become Stepford-ized."
- Rolling Stone said, "Buzz of troubles on the set... can't compare to the mess onscreen."
- Entertainment Weekly said, "The remake is, in fact, marooned in a swamp of camp inconsequentiality."
- The New York Times said, "the movie never lives up to its satiric potential, collapsing at the end into incoherence and wishy-washy, have-it-all sentimentality."
The Stepford Wives Organization complained that "In Oz's version, they [the wives] were confusingly neither robots nor human beings. [...] At some points, the "Stepford Wives" are seen as full-fledged robots: shorting out, being used as ATMs, etc... In the end, however, a simple "switch off" of implanted microchips reverts the women back to their usual selves."
Some critics were more receptive to the film. Roger Ebert called Paul Rudnick's screenplay "rich with zingers" and gave the film three stars. However, in the "Worst Movies of 2004" episode of At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper, he admitted that, while he gave the film "thumbs up," it wouldn't be "the first movie that [he] would defend."
The film's teaser won several Golden Trailer Awards, in the categories of "Summer 2004 Blockbuster" and "Most Original," as well as "Best of Show."
Box office
The US opening weekend's gross was a respectable $21,406,781; however, sales fell off quickly and that one weekend would ultimately represent over a third of the film's domestic gross of $59,484,742. The film grossed $42,428,452 internationally; its production budget was an estimated $100 million plus a further $46 million for marketing and distribution costs.
See also
- The Stepford Wives (1975)
- Asterisk Animation - provided animation for this film
References
External links
- The Stepford Wives on IMDb
- The Stepford Wives at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Stepford Wives at Box Office Mojo
Source of article : Wikipedia
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