'Stepford Wives' remake divorced from current reality

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

THE STEPFORD WIVES (PG-13) One and One-Half Stars (Poor-to-Fair) A strange, archaic remake of a '70s satire about then-emerging feminism, turned into a flamboyant and often silly saga of robot wives and adolescent-minded husbands. Nicole Kidman lends it some class and Bette Midler gives it brass; otherwise, it's a bust. Frank Oz directs. Paramount, 93 minutes.

The original — 29 years ago — was a quirky-but-relevant satire on the then emerging feminist movement. Now the tale of robot wives is a bizarre archaic relic.

Yes, it offers a few outrageous laughs, the classy Nicole Kidman and the brassy Bette Midler, and some luscious, cotton-candy production design. But it fights a war that was largely and long-ago victorious. It's not clear why anyone thought it would be a good idea to readdress it.

As in Ira Levin's novel and the original film, Stepford is a wealthy Connecticut suburb where all the husbands revel in their picture-perfect and highly submissive wives. We quickly discover that the women have all been processed into kitchen servants and sex-slave robots, straight out of some male fantasy of a pre-feminist housewife.

Kidman is Joanna Eberhart, a high-powered Manhattan television maven who's just been fired because one of her reality-TV programs backfires into real-life attempted murder. She and her mousy husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick) move with their two children to a Connecticut suburb to find a new life. (They apparently plan to live off Eberhart's golden parachute, because new jobs are never mentioned.) Once in the gated community, they discover a world straight out of "Father Knows Best," where the man is king in his castle. However, this king is depicted as a strained joke of an adolescent male, fascinated with video games, cigar smokers, and boy-toys, along with the submissive wife.

The elevated male role appeals to Walter, but his wife immediately senses something is abnormal. She befriends the only "normal" folks around. The first is Bobbi Markowitz (Midler), a writer whose token Jewishness generates a few of the film's laughs. The second is Roger Bannister (Roger Bart), the more flamboyant half of a gay couple.

The trio become bosom buddies, combating the nutty conformity that surrounds them.

The gay character is one of few updated aspects to the film, but it's not nearly enough. If you're going to update the concept, why not go all the way? How about a community where the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" fellows make everyone gay?

Or if you're going to poke fun at divisions in today's society, how about a community of Rush Limbaugh ditto-heads, turning everyone into conservative robots? (Or, in fairness, a town of liberal androids?)

Any of those ideas would be more amusingly and pointedly relevant in 2004 than this stale sitcom. The direction by Frank Oz is broadly satirical, and the tone is much lighter than in the spooky Bryan Forbes original. And though the concept is as outdated as green stamps, the Paul Rudnick screenplay offers a few legitimately funny lines, especially in Bobbi and Roger's observations about the cookie-cutter mentality that surrounds them.

But, most bizarre of all, this "Stepford Wives" not only pokes fun at a movement from a generation earlier, but even reverses its purposes. I won't tell you how or by whom, but you must be told that the evil Stepford plot is hatched by a woman and it's thwarted by a man.

So, ultimately, this "Stepford Wives" is not only out of step. It's a step backward.

Rated PG-13, with profanity and innuendo.