Film Reviews

The Stepford Wives

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Bette Midler
• Details: US / 90 mins / (15PG).

Nicole Kidman slums it in this feeble reworking of a lesser-known horror B-movie from the mid Seventies. After a title montage of gaudy images outlining the role of the 'perfect' conservative wife, we're quickly introduced to Joanna Eberhart (Kidman), the maverick head of a television network. Her golden reputation doesn't last too long, however. One of her reality programmes results in several near-fatalities and Eberhart is fired, leading to her mental breakdown. Her dutiful husband, Walter Kresby (Broderick) decides that the family needs a change of scenery, and the exclusive enclave of Stepford, Connecticut, seems to be the ideal retreat. Thing is, everything about Stepford appears to be too perfect, with the wives in particular, apparently utterly subservient to their ultra nerdish husbands. It's a fact not lost on the despondent Joanna or her new friend, Bobbie Markowitz (Bette Midler, who hasn't lost the ability to irritate, despite a lengthy absence from the screen).
The 1970s original was more effective on the horror aspects of the low rent tale, and Frank Oz's reworking never seems to find a consistent grove. Pitched uneasily between a day-glow farce and a more traditional thriller, The Stepford Wives is inconsistent and lacks bite, laying on its knowing winks to the audience impatiently. It's an odd performance from Kidman - the material may have appealed after a series of weighty roles - but that she looks so out of place is probably more to do with to the screenplay's lack of guile and suspense.

Review by Garreth Murphy