No, not a review of the edited versions of SEX AND THE CITY that have started running on basic cable TBS - though I can testify that the heart of the show is still intact, so if you missed it on HBO, now's your chance to catch up on my favorite fictional NY gals. No, this is a visit with the women of Stepford, Connecticut, brought back to "life" this summer after 30 years on the shelf.
And how those years have changed our perception of the disgruntled housewife! Back in the 70s, all that Joanna needed was some intellectual in the city to tell her he appreciated her photos, and she felt the beginnings of fulfillment. Little did she know 30 years later she'd have to be working her butt off to support the kids, the house-with-2-staircases, the gym membership, the 2 cars, her husband's golf membership, and her plastic surgery bill. Who has time for creative effort? In today's version, Joanna (Nicole Kidman) is the hard working, hardly at home president of a TV network; her husband, Walter (cute as a bug Matthew Broderick), works for her; and the kids are little urban hipsters. When Joanna gets fired after a losing reality-TV show contestant goes postal, the family heads for the relaxing pastel suburbs. In 2004, Stepford is a gated community of Sopranos-quality houses (which did kind of look like they've been soullessly decorated by robots-but what gated community doesn't?), populated by nerdy looking men and their Barbie-doll wives, and open-minded enough to welcome gay couples. By the end of day 1, Walter has already noticed the difference between his situation with Joanna, and her short hair cut and NYC black clothes, and the likes of their realtor, Clare (Glenn Close), the neighbor's wife (Faith Hill), and the ear-to-ear grins of the menfolk. Before you can say happy July 4th, Walter is conspiring with his fellow Men's Club members to bring that brainy and annoying Joanna up to speed.
Though there are a few good laughs throughout, what really keeps this movie afloat is the quality of the actors: Glenn Close is inspired as Queen of the Wives, Bette Midler is good (but her lines could be better) as Joanna's last friend, and Christopher Walken is great as "Mayor" of Stepford. I always like Nicole, and here she gets to show a bit of the dark comic actress she displayed so expertly in TO DIE FOR before the script starts to get bogged down trying to come up with an ending that makes some sort of statement.
So many things have changed since this story first was told that it's lost all its horror overtones. I mean, how bad would it be to have to be a robot if all you had to do was play tennis, wander around a huge house, drive a Mercedes, and act interested in some nerdy old guy? Half the people in LA do that everyday, and they don't seem to mind. In Stepford, all the men are Rob Petrie and all the women are Laura Petrie: both of them charming and knowing their place in the world. Stepford 2004 just seemed like a giant upper middle class theme park for marriage counseling, where men could pretend they were in charge without the responsibility and women could long for the days when housework really was a career, and families could put all the messiness of real life out of their minds for a while. In its attempt to poke fun at that concept, what STEPFORD WIVES actually does is expose that part of each of us that longs for a simpler time, when men were men (and could fix stuff) and women didn't mind. After the dysfunction of the ICE STORM families and their progeny-the AMERICAN BEAUTY crowd-the STEPFORD WIVES seems less like a horror-comedy than the next logical step in family evolution.
A final few notes on Stepford: if men really long for clean, well-decorated homes, why are there so many guys who need QUEER EYE? And why did the women have to wear such incredibly dowdy pastels? Why not a splash of Lilly or Escada or Ralph? Did they have to skip right over the past decade and head straight for Julianne Moore's wardrobe in FAR FROM HEAVEN?
While I'm on Nicole Kidman for a moment, her several-years ago movie THE PEACEMAKER has been on TNT lately. The plot about revenge-seeking Bosnians seems so 1990s now, but it's still a favorite, what with Nicole in Calvin Klein, George Clooney in various uniforms, and the eternally satisfying theme of good looking people wearing nice clothes saving the world. Forget Stepford! What could be more thrilling than that?