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The Stepford Wives (2004 film)
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The Stepford Wives is a 2004 black comedy/science fiction film. The film is a remake of the 1975 film of the same name; both films are based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives. While the original film and book had tremendous cultural impact, the remake was marked by behind-the-scenes infighting, was dismissed by critics, and flopped at the box office.
The film was directed by Frank Oz with a screenplay by Paul Rudnick and stars Nicole Kidman, Glenn Close, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Roger Bart, Faith Hill, Bette Midler and Jon Lovitz.
Plot
Summary
After television executive Joanna Eberhart (Kidman) is attacked and nearly killed by a disgruntled reality television show contestant, she and her husband Walter (Broderick) and their two children move from Manhattan to Stepford, a quiet Connecticut suburb. Eberhart becomes friends with Bobbie Markowitz (Midler), a writer and recovering alcoholic, and Roger Bannister (Bart), who is gay and has moved to town with his longtime partner. The three of them are suspicious of the other women in the town, who are all placid and blissful and spend their days exclusively on domestic tasks. After witnessing a quickly covered-up incident in which one of the Stepford wives, Sarah Sunderson (Hill), violently malfunctions, and later, the increasingly bizarre behavior of their own spouses, Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger are moved to investigate the strange goings-on in Stepford. In the process, Roger and Bobbie are transformed into bland, unnatural, domestic versions of themselves. The inhuman nature of these new Stepford spouses is revealed to Joanna when she attempts to confront the newly-transformed Bobbie and Bobbie unknowingly places her hand on a lit stove, but does not react to the flame. Joanna attempts to flee, only to discover that her children have been taken hostage by the men of Stepford. She storms the Stepford Men's Club, angrily demanding her children be returned, and is entrapped by the men who have been lying in wait for her. She is forced into the transformation room with her husband, and next we see her, she is calmly purchasing groceries alongside the rest of the Stepford wives, having apparently become one of them.
Soon after, Stepford hosts a formal ball to celebrate the full assimilation of the town, with Eberhart and her husband Walter as guests of honor. During the festivities, Joanna distracts Mike Wellington (Walken), the apparent leader of Stepford, and entices him into the garden while Walter slips away. Walter returns to the transformation room where it is revealed that the Stepford Wives are not robots after all, but cyborgs: i.e., the original human beings under the control of brain-implanted microchips. Walter destroys the software that controls the microchips, whereupon all the Stepford Wives revert to their original personalities. When Walter returns to the ball, a crisis has broken out between the baffled husbands and their vengeful wives.
Joanna and Walter reveal that Joanna had never been transformed but had instead pretended to be in order to assist in the destruction of Stepford. Mike threatens Walter, but before he can attack him, Joanna strikes him with a candlestick, decapitating him, and revealing that he too is a robot (indeed, the only actual robot, since we now know that the other robotic-acting Stepford spouses were merely cyborg-implanted humans). Distraught over the loss of her Stepford husband, Mike's wife, Claire Wellington (Close), reveals that she was the one who had created Stepford as a refuge from the evils of the world in a fit of despair after discovering the real Mike had been having an affair. Claire electrocutes herself using the remains of her Stepford husband, and the irate wives take over Stepford and force their husbands to atone for their crimes by becoming completely subject to the women's wills, placing them under house arrest, and making them complete many of the same banal domestic tasks they had forced the women to do previously.
Plot Holes
With the "cyborg implant" version of the ending, the wives' bodies would be normal human bodies, leaving many points from throughout the movie unexplained:
- In one scene, a Stepford wife dispenses money out of her mouth like an ATM[2]
- When Sarah Sunderson malfunctions, her body gives off electric sparks.[3]
- The robo-Bobbie suffers no tissue damage when her fingers rest in an open flame.[2]
- A robot body-double of Joanna is a central part of her scene with Walter in the transformation room.[3]
- When Mike is decapitated, his body is shown to have been robotic, but it is not explained within the movie why he should have had a robotic body when the other Stepford spouses supposedly do not.[3] This is however explained when his wife hints that she murdered him in a fit of rage after finding out he was having an affair.
- The purpose of the central server room that controls the robo-wives' cyborg implants is never explained within the plot, nor is the means by which this server room communicates with the robo-wives.[2]
One contributor at MovieMistakes.com has posited that the bodies are, in fact, robot bodies with the cyborg-brains transplanted into them. He explains the fact that this contradicts the movie's own explanation[4] by stating that the movie characters are lying.
Cast
Production
This film is notorious for the numerous production problems that occurred throughout its shooting schedule. The tension started when both John Cusack and Joan Cusack, originally slated to star in supporting roles, pulled out of the project and were replaced by Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler, respectively. After filming was initially completed, several changes were made to the new script, which created a number of plot holes, and the cast was called back for reshoots. Reports of problems onset between director Frank Oz and stars Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler were rampant in the press.citation needed Kidman was reportedly so dissatisfied with the new screenplay that she considered pulling out of the project. In recent interviews, Kidman, Matthew Broderick and producer Scott Rudin have all expressed regret for participating in this project.citation needed
In an interview with Ain't It Cool, Frank Oz's take on the film was "I fucked up... 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."[5]
The majority of the film was shot in Darien, Connecticut and New Canaan, Connecticut.
Critical Reception
The film was largely excoriated by the critics:
- Rolling Stone said, "Buzz of troubles on the set... can't compare to the mess onscreen."[6]
- Entertainment Weekly said, "The remake is, in fact, marooned in a swamp of camp inconsequentiality."[7]
- 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."[8]
There were also receptive critics, however. Roger Ebert, for example, called Paul Rudnick's screenplay "rich with zingers", and gave the film three stars. (Visitors to his website were less charitable, affording it an average of only two stars.)[9]
Also, 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".[10]
Box office
The film was a commercial flop as well. The US opening weekend's gross was a respectible $21,406,781; however, sales fell off quickly and that one weekend would ultimately represent well over a third of the film's domestic gross of $59,484,742.[11] The film grossed $42,428,452 internationally; its budget was an estimated $90,000,000.[12]
For the year, the film barely cracked the top 50 grossing movies, finishing well behind such inglorious company as Barbershop 2, Christmas with the Kranks, and The Garfield Movie, and grossing just over one-tenth as much as the year's luminaries such as Shrek II and The Passion of the Christ[13].
Differences between the 2004 film and the 1975 version
- The town's women were formerly successful and powerful figures in their industries - scientists, politicians, television moguls. In 1975, the women were only just beginning to attain power in the workforce equal to men's.
- Among the couples who had recently moved to Stepford was a gay couple. In the original novel, the newest couple to move in after the protagonist is the town's first African American couple.
- Unlike previous versions, the head programmer of the wives, Mike Wellington (Christopher Walken) is revealed to be a robot himself, a Stepford Husband (a nod to the changing times). The real programmer is his wife Claire (Glenn Close).
- In the book and original movie, there is no happy ending: the town's husbands have murdered their wives and replaced them with look-alike robots. In the remake, the women are simply implanted with microchips whose effects are fully reversible.
References
See also
External links
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