The Stepford Wives
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Movie Reviews of The Stepford Wives
Movie Review: Cool Movie - bad transfer
Summary: 3 Stars
I just got the newly released (June 15, 2004) DVD and was surprised to see how low quality the image looks on a HDTV with a progressive scan player. You may want to rent this one before you buy it.Movie Review: a great concept, but poorly executed
Summary: 2 Stars
A film by Bryan ForbesThis film is the first "Stepford Wives" movie and is adapted from Ira Levin's novel of the same name. The tone of this film is much different than the newer version. The new "Stepford Wives" is more of a comedy, but this version fits into the horror/thriller/suspense genre. It deals with an idea that should scare the feminist movement: that men would rather trade their wife in for a human looking robot than have a strong woman as a mate. When this movie was released in 1975, "The Stepford Wives" had a social identity and a social relevance to the feminist movement. In that vein, the movie might have been more powerful twenty years ago, but I can only react to how it played today.
Walter (Peter Masterson) and Joanna (Katherine Ross) are moving from the big city to the smaller town of Stepford. Joanna is unnerved by the women of Stepford. They all seem to be very happy and content in their lives...lives that are solely focused on pleasing their husbands. Joanna thinks that something is wrong, and seems to get confirmation when new residents who start out normal begin changing dramatically to the "Stepford" type wife. The tone of this film leans towards suspense as tension is building throughout the film as hints are given and Joanna's fear mounts as to what is happening and what may very well happen to her.
The movie has a great idea behind it. The whole concept of Stepford is wonderful for a movie (and a book, too) and it should work much better than it does. The problem is that the acting was not very good, but that may be because the dialogue the actors were given wasn't much better. A big example of this is the character of Bobbie (Paula Prentiss). She comes off as a very hokey character, somewhat hickish, though the character has pretenses of being a true feminist. No character is truly given a chance to develop or show a personality, not even the characters which are supposed to actually have a personality. "The Stepford Wives" was just a disappointing movie, though I can imagine it had more of an impact in 1975, but surely not for the quality of the picture. The impact must have been for what the movie was about. The only thing I found truly interesting about "The Stepford Wives" is that this is the film debut of a young Mary Stuart Masterson (the son of Peter Masterson).
-Joe Sherry
Movie Review: CHILLING, DISTURBING, & HORRID
Summary: 2 Stars
Another twisted tale from the late Ira Levin, who also gave us "Rosemary's Baby" and "Deathtrap." The film is quite effective in its use of creepy foreshadowing. Just before she moves with her husband and kids from Manhattan to tranquil Stepford, photographer Joanne (Katharine Ross) snaps a photo of a man carrying a mannequin across the street-- terribly symbolic of the environment she will soon find herself trapped in.
Once settled in Stepford, we see her husband (Peter Masterson) wearing a shirt with the word "PAPA" on it. He soon joins the Stepford Men's Association. The wives are much too tranquil-- they are vapidly "blank." They sound like TV commercials-- prattling on endlessly about the joys of ironing, baking, cleaning, etc. Everybody remembers the party scene where one "wife" keeps repeating "I'll just die if I don't get this receipe." Perky Paula Prentiss as Bobbie gives the only lively performance in the film; that is, before she is "changed." Katharine Ross is not particularly good; although her peformance grows much stronger (by "stronger", I mean "emotionally overwrought") by the time she visits the psychiatrist until the end. Perhaps Ross, like the doomed character she portrays, realized she was trapped in a mess!!
I wish I could have "enjoyed" this film as a satire of surburban assimilation, but I just can't. I don't find any humor, either black or camp, in the plot, either. At first, I thought it was all sickeningly misogynistic but, after reading another review, I realized the film is neither anti-women or pro-men. The men are all evil, and the women are all victims. I believe the basic premise was recycled for TV movies like "Stepford Children," (Parents kill their difficult children and replace them with perfect robot duplicats!), "Stepford Husbands," "Return To Stepford", "Revenge Of The Stepford Wives" or some such titles, equally inane and unnecessary. The original film accomplishes its disturbing chores in competent enough fashion. At the end, the evil president of the Men's Association tells Ross they do what they do "because we can." The implications therein are so horrid I can not, I did not, laugh at this film or "enjoy" any of it.
Movie Review: Oh no! The big bad MALE is going to get me!!!!
Summary: 2 Stars
As a feminist, I hate movies that portray women as victims who struggle futile against the big bad evil MAN.
There are no good men in this movie. There are no evil women.
Such portrayals of women are demeaning. We are human beings, just like men. We are capable of evil. Men are capable of good.
Yes, some men would turn their wives into robots if they could, but so would some women! And I find it ridiculous that not one man stood up for his beloved partner. I find it ridiculous that not one woman was capable of true evil. Are we puppets?
It also bothers me that if these women are so strong and powerful, that they are helpless against the big bad men. The message seems to be that we can't save ourselves. We are just doomed to be what men want us to be.
I hate this attitude. Men are not all powerful. Women are human beings, not saints.
Two stars, though, for capturing the fears of women everywhere.
Movie Review: Stepford Feminists
Summary: 2 Stars
I was too young to see this when it originally came out, but finally saw it on cable. This is a movie whose themes have not aged well, but it is a very campy little time-capsule of a film.
The politics of the 1970's equal-rights movement are really perplexing viewed through a post-feminist lens. The women in this movie all whine because their husbands want them to actually stay home, cook, clean, and raise the children. Horrors!
Frankly, with such selfish, self-absorbed, whiny creatures as depicted in that movie, I found myself rooting for the husbands for turning them into robots. Thankfully, the Battle of the Sexes is fading into the shadows of pop-culture history, and I think (hope) men and women are re-learning to value and respect each other and the complementary roles we play.