Movie Info

RATING:

PG-13 for sexual content, thematic material and language

RELEASE:

June 11, 2004

GENRE:

Comedy, Romance, Thriller

STARRING:

Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill, Bette Midler, Glenn Close

DIRECTOR:

Frank Oz

DISTRIBUTOR:

Paramount Pictures

 

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MOVIE REVIEW

The Stepford Wives

By Randall Allen Dunn
Guest Reviewer

What's This?

CBN.com - Marriage takes a beating from which it never fully recovers in "The Stepford Wives", taking Christian faith along with it. Were it not viewed through the Hollywood lens, its well-intended message of accepting our imperfections and making marriages work may have come across. But the positive themes are drowned out by the negative examples of bad relationships.

Plot: Nicole Kidman plays Joanna Eberhard, successful president of a major television network, and creator of "battle of the sexes" reality shows. When one show leads a contestant to abandon her husband and he tries to kill Joanna, the networks fire her. Her husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick), moves them to the quiet town of Stepford, Connecticut, for a fresh start. Walter is immediately drawn to the unbelievably beautiful neighborhood women, who do their husbands' bidding before being asked. On the surface, everything is perfect and idyllic, but Joanna doesn't trust the local women, who keep their houses immaculately clean and even wear full dresses and make-up to do aerobics. They soon learn that the town's men have "adjusted" their wives to become slaves, fulfilling all of their personal desires. Worse, Walter is seriously considering the benefits of having a "perfect" wife.

Good: Fun and entertaining, this film uses a silly, surreal Tim Burton style that doesn't take itself seriously for a moment. The campy portrayals are carried off masterfully by Kidman, Broderick and Glenn Close, an eerily good-natured woman who guides everyone in the ways of Stepford's idyllic small town life.

The film mocks most negative acts, showing the irresponsibility of husbands who leave their wives with excessive housework while they play war games with remote-control cars. The most valuable moments show Joanna and Walter honestly assessing their marital problems and determining to work through them. Even better, Joanna selflessly strives to conform to the Stepford standards for wifely behavior, though she finds them demeaning and unrealistic.

When she learns that Walter wants to force her to be "adjusted" like the rest of the town women, to automatically behave as his personal slave, Joanna argues that a robotic wife can't say "I love you" and actually mean it. In a final attempt to persuade him, she delivers a passionate kiss that speaks more of her devotion to him than of desire. The film ends happily for them, having found a balance between family and career life, and we know they have committed to staying married.

Bad: The message of accepting our imperfect spouses and ourselves is drowned out/overpowered by the bombardment of marital complaints and spouses who are trigger-happy to get divorced. When we first learn of Walter's frustrations with his preoccupied, career-driven wife, he is walking out the door, saying, "Game over. Marriage over." A disillusioned couple, Bobbie (Bette Midler) and her husband (Jon Levitz) constantly challenge each other in bitter verbal battles.

And in typical Hollywood fashion, a central sympathetic character, Roger, is an unabashed homosexual. He provides half of the film's sexual banter, which is raw.

Besides some shocking references to body parts and the open flirting of wives toward other married men, the most distasteful scene involves Joanna, Bobbie and Roger breaking into an injured friend's home, where they hear loud and prolonged wails of intimacy from an unseen bedroom. Roger starts toward it, saying, "I want some." The woman (Faith Hill) then comes downstairs in a short, revealing nightgown, and Roger unwittingly sets off her "adjusted" body's controls, causing her breasts to swell to ridiculous proportions.

The mock reality show at the beginning also shows a dozen attractive men and women in overtly sexual outfits, described as "professional prostitutes" hired to tempt the married couple. The sensuality is heavy. Beautiful women wear tight, low-cut summer dresses that appear innocent, but the collected mobs of these women with their perfect figures and slavish behavior becomes extremely suggestive. Walter is immediately drawn to lust after the neighborhood women, and further tempted to have such a wife who will do his bidding before even being asked. He becomes detached and selfish like the other men, seeing Joanna as an interruption to his personal plans.

Christian faith and traditional values are mocked often. Stepford is presented as a naïve 1950's world, where Christianity is lumped together with Republican politics and "family values", which also seem to support the subjugation of women, disregard of homosexuals, and insensitive men pursuing adolescent fantasies.

Bottom Line: Though well intentioned, this film fails to convince us that marriage is worth fighting for. Were it not viewed through the Hollywood lens, its message may have come through. If anything, it teaches us to hate anyone who expects us to change our behavior for them, especially the opposite sex.