The Stepford Wives 

Plot:

A heartless social climbing sociopath is dragged kicking and screaming from her oh-so fulfilling LA life to the horror of an American suburb. It seems her husband has the audacity to suggest that she should maybe stop ruining the lives of strangers, and that being a couple, they might want to spend some time in the same room.
Chauvinist bastard!
As the women in this new neighborhood are, to her horror, not psychotic bitch-creatures that take every opportunity to screw over their friends, and undercut their husbands' lives, she deduces that something is afoot. It turns out that an evil conspiracy is freezing the woman, (or something equally stupid) and replacing them with Auto-napo-matanamatons!
Who was I supposed to be rooting for again?

Comments:

I recently added 'The Stepford Wives' remake to my Flixster list of worst movies, and I figured that was enough incentive to get working on a review I've been avoiding like the plague. Now, I originally watched the film a couple of years ago when it came out on video. You will have to forgive me if my memory is a little hazy and I make a minor misstatement or two during this review. You see, while I took copious notes, and certain segments of the film have been eternally seared into my mind like, perhaps, the vision of a friend's murder, I always try to get in a recent viewing of any film I review. However, as I awoke this morning, one perfect truth emerged from my cobwebby brain.

There is no crime I could possibly envision myself committing that would create enough self-loathing to cause me to watch this film again.

So without further ado, my review of the least funny comedy, most un-thrilling thriller, and best argument for moving the locus of major film production from LA to Greenland that I've ever seen.

Now, 'Stepford' could have been something really fun. A comedic send-up of a silly, feminist robot movie that's so socially dated it plays like a weird episode of 'Wait Till Your Father Gets Home'. The cast not only features Kidman and Close, but one of the coolest actors alive today, Christopher Walken. (Hell, if you screw up a movie with Walken, you almost have to be actively trying.)
The trouble lies solely with screenwriter, Paul Rudnick. Rudnick, as you might know, is one of the leading writers of gay farce in Hollywood today. Now I certainly don't hold fault with Rudnick for writing to an audience of which I am not a member. Rather, I fault him for being so g*d-damned bad at it! Frankly, if I were a friend of Dorothy, I would be horribly offended at the prospect that I am supposed to enjoy brainless crap for its own sake.

At first blush, much of the problem with this film might seem to be that Rudnick is simply the wrong type of writer to pen it. The whole scenario of 'Stepford' is rooted in gender friction and the blurring of traditional male/female role models. A fair question might be; who worse to write a film concerning heterosexual tension than someone who hasn't the foggiest idea of what it's all about?
(You pc types may think this point a bit of unfair generalizing, and borderline offensive. You know what offends me? People who timidly lie in order to be polite.)
In its own lazy, pointless, and uber-clichéd way, 'Stepford' actually turns out to be more confused and hateful than 'The Wicker Man' remake. (Midler's character in particular is pickled in misandry, and yet, is supposed to be appealing for some reason.)
Much like one of his previous cinematic abortions, 'Isn't She Great', Rudnick has a knack for creating lead characters which while supposed to be endearingly brassy, are hideously self-centered schizoid shrew-women, the kind whose karmatic credit would more warrant being beaten to death with a claw hammer than having an audience of any orientation identify with them.
Of course, it's not just the leads; all of Rudnick's characters are uni-dimensional shtick vomiting mannequins. Any hope of this "thriller" being thrilling are stillborn, firstly because no matter how sinister a conspiracy they face, it's impossible to side with these shrill homunculi. Secondly, they are so poorly developed as human beings, turning into a Stepford bot seems like a lateral move.

Rudnick, perhaps realizing he has no possibility of ever crafting an engaging drama, gripping thriller, or passable nursery rhyme, falls back upon the only crutch he has. He aims for jokey, and hopes to hit broad camp when he misses. His aim is about as good as Dick Cheney's. I'll try to be charitable; the man has not one ounce of writing ability. This film contains not one crumb of originality, nor dim twinkle of wit. The "humor" doesn't seem like something actually written by people, so much as it does by aliens swapping really racist "dumb human" jokes around the liquid molybdenum cooler. Aside from hollow characterization, Rudnick's dialogue is the worst type of flying brickbat tripe, and his scene construction is leaden and draining.

To give a damn good example of what I've been jawing on about, let's take a quick look at the film's protagonist, Joanna Eberhart. (Her husband's name is Kresby, but she doesn't take his name of course, as she is self-actualized. Read; "In love with the smell of her own sh*t.")
We first meet Joanna as she is hosting some ridiculous prime time game show where bored couples are taken to a fake island, then encouraged to cheat on each other with tawny natives. (Are these people professional prostitutes, or indentured sex addicts? Either way, ewwww!) This is supposed to be some parody of reality tv, I take it, but it's completely flaccid and pointless in addition to being unpleasant. Rudnick's "satirical" style is so crudely onanistic that he manages to make 'My Big, Fat, Obnoxious Fiancé' look witty and dignified.
The male of this week's couple, decides that he really does love his wife, and looks forward to renewing their relationship. She decides to run off with a native.
You know, this is hilarious, because as a spiritual man, and one who's watched countless families torn apart by infidelity-gaping wounds never to be closed, children emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives-I must agree that nothing is more giggle worthy than a union destroyed by flippant serial adultery.
The cuckolded hubby tries to take Joanna down with a handgun, but failing to load it with blessed silver bullets, the succubus escapes, only to be dragged to Stepford by her husband, Droopy Dog. (Oh, sorry, Matthew Broderick, in the role of Sans Testecles.)

Just one more quick note concerning the LA segment; I find it odd that for something of a community advocate, Rudnick writes such crude, mincing, gay stereotypes. (Or rather, I would, if I believed the man capable of writing anything other than clichés.) Like in countless hack sitcoms, it seems that gay men have nothing better to do than be wisecracking vestigial friend supplements for bitchy straight women, orbiting around the mephitic Joanna like the cold, lifeless satellites of some swirling hell-planet.

Ok, I'm tired of thinking about this film already, let's speed things along.
Blah blah, casseroles, blah blah, people who aren't coastal liberals are icky, blah blah, robots; let's turn Joanna into one! Now it's time for Matt to show up all those chauvinist pigs! He says he'd rather be ignored and abused by the baby eating hose-beast he married than wind up with some brainless Barbie doll. "What kind of man are you?" someone bellows. "That's a man", interjects (regurgitates?) Joanna.

No, Mr. Rudnick, allow me to educate you. A man is not a user, but he certainly is not a puppet. Being a doormat for a sociopathic, soulless, centerless c-word like Joanna makes one about as much of a man as owning a pair of pink satin tap pants. A man does not grovel, anymore than he bellows orders. A man who would stand up to the Stepford socialites for the sake of a good woman is a man. A "man" who would stand up for Joanna, deserves her.

Let's nail this coffin shut, shall we? I now present for your edification the only funny lines in the entire film;
· "She just NEEDS, a BREATH of fresh, air."
· "It's a picture again!"
The humor here, of course, is supplied solely by the delivery. A nod to the respective talent of Christopher Walken and Jon Lovitz, may I someday forget them having anything to do with this.

'Stepford' had to its credit, a superb cast, a decent director (Oz's 'What About Bob?' is terribly underrated) and production values to drool over, yet it manages to fail on every possible conceivable level. The one question remaining is just how bad is it?
I will tell you in all honesty, I have never seen a worse film.
Ed Wood? Don't make me laugh! At least he was charmingly earnest, and his films are hugely fun. Uwe Boll? Hell, his stuff is a laugh riot! Not even dreck like 'Monster A Go-Go', or 'Manos' is quite as bad. Why? Those films just put one to sleep; this movie is pure f***ing torture. There is however, one film that I would put on equal par with 'Stepford', and, after much philosophizing, proclaim as worse. That would be Michael Mann's 'The Keep'. (But that's another review.) The reason why being that that film managed to rape a nice Lovecraftian story, while this one just destroyed a bland, annoying, 70's robot-thriller.
(And to be honest, this film was supposed to be really, really gay.)

So Conrad John, you may breath a sigh of relief from your rent-to-own futon. 'Haunted House' is no longer the most hated film on this website. I hereby pass that bloody mantle to 'The Stepford Wives', with a heartfelt plea that the next time someone suggests that Nicole Kidman can do comedy, we just do the charitable thing, and shoot them.

-5.0!

Yet another negative rating, am I on a roll, or what!

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