The Stepford Wives (2004/Widescreen)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: C+
When I heard the cast and director for the 2004 remake of The
Stepford Wives, there was reason for optimism. The original film had dated a little bit and the material
deserved a second serious look. It
always struck me odd that so many people today think of the first film as a
satire or comedy, missing the point of the film and its book. Unfortunately, writer Paul Rudnick and
director Frank Oz decided to do an outright comedy and ruined one of the
simplest no-brainer remakes you could have asked for.
When the film begins, optimism jumps when we are treated
to one of the best credit sequences to appear in a feature film in years,
celebrating bright ranges of color in a dark manner. A set of authentic industrial films that are mostly in color
formats no longer used are bookended and split-screened with various patterns
of flashing color that represent the digital computer world and the resulting
technology, contrasting sharply with the appliances and conveniences featured
in the various “home of the future” scenarios that promote nuclear energy and
women staying in the home. One even
looks like the Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger classic The Red Shoes
(1948), edited so well to the title instrumental waltz with occasional vocals
by David Arnold. It is some of Arnold’s
best work in years and the waltz should have linked the film to lead star
Nicole Kidman’s work in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), but the
film just cannot resist the Spielberg aesthetic, which leads to its undoing.
This leads to Joanna Eberhart (Kidman), who instead of
being a professional photographer as in the first film (reviewed elsewhere on
this site) is a huge corporate television network executive. In what is somewhat of a tip of the hat to
Sidney Lumet’s film of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network (1976) and Kidman is
really good in the role, but the reality TV trend kicks in and once we are
reminded that Chayefsky really was right, the scene gets played out quickly, a
problem that plagues the film every time it dwells on the obvious, which gets
worse later on. It lands up looking
like a James Bond set. We could hope
for a bounce back, though.
Bette Midler, in some of her best work in years, succeeds
Paula Prentiss as Bobby, who becomes Joanna’s best friend. Rudnick and company even get the point of
Deep Purple, the rise of Gay Culture and how sex has become more common and
more suppressed. That is why all the
problems that occur are all the more frustrating and unnecessary.
Whereas the 1975 Stepford community was rich, yet
understated, this version pours on the wealth and luxuries like it is trying to
end Hip Hop Music Videos as we know it, with dozens of the most expensive
houses, automobiles and other amenities that turns into one of the film’s
ultimate mistakes. If you are replacing
women with puppet duplicates, the last thing you do is draw attention to
yourself or where you live. James Bond
never called this much of a fuss, no matter how fantastic those films ever
became. It should also be noted that
this ultimately has the opposite effect of the far superior Pleasantville,
Gary Ross’ underrated 1998 undertaking.
This film had no reason to go into that territory, but that is only one
of many distractions.
What this brings on instead is taking one of the best-cast
films of the year (maybe last few years) and turning the incredible amount of
talent into a bunch of live action cartoon characatures. That was never the intent of the Ira Levin
book and it is fair to say that both films missed capturing the book, but this
new version is miles further than Bryan Forbes film. The more I watch it, the worse it gets. It has issues dealing with how the Gay couple (or any gay couple)
could fit into this community and their presence just thrown in negates the
male/female issues, while an even more trivialized African-American couple
shows up for five minutes before disappearing.
Talk about playing loosely with some great ideas!
There is talk about how everyone was trying to add ideas,
which can be expected from so much talent, but that it got so bad that Rudnick
and Oz had also thrown their arms up in surrender and the film tail-spinned out
of control. The ultimate reason doing
this as a comedy fails is that because the 1950s ideal is a false sense of
happiness on a grand scale and that is something you cannot just laugh
off. The film ultimate fights the
loosing battle of replacing it with a new model of that false happiness for the
21st Century and especially after the events of 9/11/01, no one is
going to buy that. This is why anytime
they try to have some happy ending in this film and go the Spielberg way,
happiness no matter what remains truly unresolved; it rings falser than the
1950s films in the credits. This
explains its theatrical box office shortcomings.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image looks decent
and was shot very well by Rob Hahn, A.S.C., but some limits in the DVD format
prevent us from seeing how good the better color shots look and the films
digital work and darker moments are not as impressive, especially as compared
to the rest of the film. The film has a
good sound mix, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is the only 5.1 option
here and its infamous over-compression veils the true extent of how dynamic a
soundtrack this is.
Extras include five featurettes that feel more like promo
opportunities than explanations about the film and how it was done, instead
veiling the problematic production, yet still showing the lack of handle or
edge the film landed up having. The
theatrical teaser that worked so well and final trailer that did not are
included, as well as a good gag reel and mixed commentary by Oz. He tells us how he was mistaken in trying to
do an opening credits sequence in New York with hundreds of women performing to
Helen Reddy’s classic I Am Woman, only realizing that it did not work
after he had made it. Then he got the
great credits to begin with. I realized
in this that Oz was just not the right person to helm this film, no matter what
his great talents. Finally, we get
deleted scenes, which shows one of the alternate fate of what happens to the
original wives. Sadly, they all become
Betty Crocker versions of Inspector Gadget!
Geez! What were these people
thinking? The rest of the cast includes
Matthew Broderick who actually played Gadget in a bad live action film,
Christopher Walken, an impressive Faith Hill, John Lovitz and Glenn Close among
the more known names.
The biggest disaster of all is a miscalculation of
monumental proportions. What is the
psychology behind men willing to have sex with robots the rest of their lives
just to have wives they can control? Could
they not be murderers and get divorces form their human wives and take up with
the robots? They could adopt children,
after all. That has always been an
issue in suspending disbelief even in the book, though there and in the first
film, it does work as metaphor. Too bad
this remake of The Stepford Wives rarely works at all. They made the assumption everyone knew what
they knew about the book and film, but did not consider that few had seen the
first film and less had actually read the book. That kind of financial miscalculation is shocking, but that is
what happened here. Ultimately, the
film is one of the year’s big disappointments.
- Nicholas Sheffo
