The Stepford Wives

By FRANCESCA RUDKIN

(Herald rating: * * )

The Stepford Wives, first turned into a film in 1975, was adapted from Ira Levin's best-selling book, which was considered a response to the first wave of feminism.

This version is care of director Frank Oz and is a comedic thriller that's light on thrills, but well written enough to give you a few laughs.

Joanna (Kidman) is an extremely successful TV executive, who suffers a job loss and nervous breakdown after one of the contestants from a reality TV show goes on a killing spree.

In rushes the attentive and caring, but not quite as successful, husband Walter (a surprisingly unimpressive Broderick) who sweeps her off to the immaculate Connecticut community of Stepford where they plan to start afresh.

Stepford is a perfect community in an imperfect world. It is the ultimate 50s middle-class dream, an old-fashioned world where men feel safe and secure in their masculinity, the houses are huge and lawns are flawless.

Life in Stepford, however, is all a little too good to be true. The guys are average, almost geeky, and the wives are domestic goddesses who live to make their husbands happy; they are beautiful, sexually available, loving and exceptionally good at baking. They are devoid of personality and submissive in the extreme.

Joanne, dressed in her black Manhattan wardrobe, feels distinctly out of place in this surreal world and is delighted when she meets another witty New Yorker Bobbie (Midler) and gay architect Roger. Overnight though, her new friends change, cleaning their houses and they somehow suddenly know how to bake. It's up to Joanne to break the Stepford cycle.

Supposedly a commentary on greed and consumerism, those themes get lost in this intentionally lightweight remake. With a cast happy to play it for broad laughs, the satire of the original is skipped over as Kidman and co go to town creating funny moments.

Still, The Stepford Wives version 2.0 is a lighthearted comedy reminding us that striving for perfection is a waste of energy: not getting things quite right gives us our humanity, and makes us all the more interesting at dinner parties.


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

DIRECTOR: Frank Oz

RUNNING TIME: 93 mins

RATING: M (sexual references)

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts and Berkeley Cinemas