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The Stepford Wives (2004 film)
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Wikipedia article
'The Stepford Wives' is a 2004 American science fiction black comedy film directed by Frank Oz from a screenplay by Paul Rudnick and stars Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill and Glenn Close. It is based on Ira Levin's 1972 novel of the same name and is the second feature-length adaptation of the novel following the 1975 film of the same name. The film received generally negative reviews from the critics and was a box office failure, grossing $103 million worldwide on a $90 million budget.
Plot
Successful reality television executive producer Joanna Eberhart's career suddenly ends after a disillusioned reality show participant named Hank attempts a shootout. After Joanna suffers a mental breakdown, she, her husband Walter Kresby, and their two children Pete and Kimberly move from Manhattan to Stepford, a quiet Fairfield County, Connecticut suburb. Upon the family's arrival, Joanna befriends writer and recovering alcoholic Roberta "Bobbie" Markowitz and Roger Bannister, a flamboyant gay man who has moved to town with his long-time partner Jerry.
After the trio witness Sarah Sunderson violently dance and then collapse, Joanna argues with Walter about the incident until Walter bluntly informs her that her children barely know her, their marriage is falling apart, and her domineering nature makes people want to kill her. As he tries to walk out of their marriage, Joanna apologizes and agrees to appease him by trying to fit in with the other wives. The next day, Joanna, Bobbie and Roger go to Sarah's home to check up on her, where upon entering, they hear her upstairs, ecstatically screaming during sex with her husband Herb. As they scramble to sneak out they find a remote control labeled SARAH, discovering a button that causes Sarah's breasts to enlarge and makes her walk backwards robotically.
One evening, Walter and Bobbie's husband Dave go to the Men's Association with Roger and Jerry, but Joanna and Bobbie hire a babysitter and sneak inside to spy on them and the other husbands. They discover a hall filled with family portraits but Roger catches them and assures them that all is well. The next day, the pair discover Roger's flamboyant clothing, Playbill program from 'Hairspray', and photo of Orlando Bloom have all been discarded. Jerry tells them to meet him in the town hall and they see Roger, apparently running for State Senate, with a bland look and conformist personality. Joanna wants to leave and Walter agrees, saying they will go the next day. Going into Walter's study, she discovers that all the Stepford wives were once working women in high-power positions.
The next day, Joanna visits Bobbie, noticing that her formerly messy house is spotless. Now blending in with the other Stepford wives, Bobbie says she is a whole new person and the most important thing is her cookbook. While offering to help Joanna change, Bobbie obliviously puts her hand over the stove's burner. Returning to the Men's Association, Joanna finds that in her family picture she now resembles a Stepford wife. Men's Association leader Mike shows how they insert nanochips into their wives' brains to make them Stepford wives. The men corner the Eberharts and force them toward the transformation room, but Joanna asks if the new wives really mean it when they tell their husbands that they love them. The next scene shows the Stepford wives, including Joanna, now blonde and dressed in Sunday dresses, at the grocery store.
With Joanna and Walter as special guests, Stepford hosts a formal ball. During the festivities, Joanna distracts Mike and entices him into the garden, while Walter slips away to the transformation room where he destroys the software that programs the women. At the ball, the wives corner their husbands and reveal that Joanna never received the microchip implant. Mike threatens Walter, but Joanna decapitates him with a candlestick, exposing him as a robot. Mike's wife Claire explains that she created Stepford because she, too, was a bitter career-minded woman. When she discovered Mike's affair with her research assistant, she murdered them in a jealous rage. Claire then electrocutes herself by kissing Mike's severed robotic head.
Six months later, in an interview with Larry King, Joanna (who has won six Emmys for producing the hard-hitting documentary 'Stepford: The Secret of the Suburbs'), Roger (who has won his State Senate seat as an Independent) and Bobbie (who has written and published her first book of poetry 'Wait Until He's Asleep, Then Cut It Off') explain that the Stepford husbands are being retrained to become better people. The closing scene reveals that the wives have now taken over Stepford and have placed their husbands under house arrest, making them complete the same domestic tasks that they had forced the women to do.
Cast
* Nicole Kidman as Joanna Eberhart
* Matthew Broderick as Walter Kresby
* Bette Midler as Roberta "Bobbie" Markowitz
* Christopher Walken as Mike Wellington
* Glenn Close as Claire Wellington
* Roger Bart as Roger Bannister
* Faith Hill as Sarah Sunderson
* Jon Lovitz as Dave Markowitz
* Matt Malloy as Herb Sunderson
* David Marshall Grant as Jerry Harmon
* Kate Shindle as Beth Peters
* Lorri Bagley as Charmaine Van Sant
* Lisa Lynn Masters as Carol Wainwright
* Robert Stanton as Ted Van Sant
* Mike White as Hank
* Carrie Preston as Barbara
* KaDee Strickland as Tara
* Larry King as Himself
* Meredith Vieira as host of 'Balance of Power'
* Billy Bush as host of 'I Can Do Better'
* Mary Beth Peil as Helen Devlin
* Dylan Hartigan as Pete Kresby, Joanna and Walter's son
Production
John Cusack was originally cast as Walter and his sister Joan Cusack was originally cast as Bobbie. Joan Cusack had previously appeared in two other films written by Rudnick - 'Addams Family Values' and 'In & Out', the latter also directed by Frank Oz, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. They both had to drop out of the film only weeks before filming started, to be with their father, Dick Cusack, who was dying.
Reportedly, there were problems on-set between Oz and stars Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Glenn Close and Roger Bart. In a 2003 interview Oz stated "Tension on the set? Absolutely! In every movie I do, there's tension. That's the whole point. And working people hard, that's exactly what they expect me to do... Bette has been under a lot of stress lately... She made the mistake of bringing her stress on the set."
The film was originally conceived as a darkly satirical piece with an ending closer to the finale of the original but negative results from test screenings caused Paramount to commission numerous rounds of reshoots which significantly altered the tone of the film and gave it a new ending.
In a 2007 interview with 'Ain't It Cool News', Oz's take on the film was "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."
In a 2005 interview Matthew Broderick stated, "Making that film wasn't enjoyable. It was nobody's fault but my part was not terribly interesting... It was not a thrilling film. I would hate it if it were my last."
The majority of the film was shot in Darien, New Canaan and Norwalk, Connecticut.
Reception
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, 'The Stepford Wives' holds an approval rating of 26% based on 175 reviews with an average rating of 4.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "In exchanging the chilling satire of the original into mindless camp, this remake has itself become Stepford-ized."Pete Travers of 'Rolling Stone' said that the on-set complications of the film "can't compare to the mess onscreen." Lisa Schwarzbaum of 'Entertainment Weekly' said, "The remake is, in fact, marooned in a swamp of camp, inconsequentiality." A. O. Scott of '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."
Some critics were more receptive to the film. Roger Ebert called Paul Rudnick's screenplay "rich with zingers" and gave the film three stars. However, in the "Worst Movies of 2004" episode of 'At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper', he admitted that, while he gave the film "thumbs up", it wouldn't be "the first movie that [he] would defend."
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".
Box office
The U.S. opening weekend's gross was a respectable $21,406,781 but sales fell off quickly. That weekend represented over a third of the final domestic gross of $59,484,742. The film grossed $42,428,452 internationally. Its production budget was an estimated $100,000,000, plus a further $46,000,000 for marketing and distribution costs.References
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