Stepford Wives

Year: 1975

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Forbes

Review

(1975) – this and the original rollerball were both released in 1975, and both had extremely bad remakes. this film isn’t as good as the original rollerball, but like that film it’s an interesting and entertaining film steeped in social commentary. stepford wives is about conformity, gender issues, technology, etc. it’s remake is hardly about any of those things. the 2004 version, in fact, is supposed to be a comedy, but turned out to be more frightening than funny. frightening because it’s scary just how far off the remake is in terms of the original’s intent. again the same is true for both versions of rollerball – the original is a brilliant social commentary and the 2002 version is an action film that almost becomes the very thing that the original was condemning. you could call it irony, but i’d call it violence…the remakes of both these films do violence to the originals. it’s like toby keith doing a cover of “the times are a changin’.” katharine ross is great as an aspiring photographer/wife/mother. one of the many things that this film did that the remake did not, is create a smooth story arc. this version shows the oddities of the town and its citizens in small increments, so as to slowly crank up the fear and suspense. whereas the remake introduced the suspense in jolts, it’s as if the original rolls down a steady decline, and the remake rolls down a set of stairs. not only was the original more subtle in its ratcheting up the suspense, but its suspense was more effective because it was played as a straight suspense/thriller instead of trying to be all things to all people (suspense, comedy, drama, romance). despite having a solid cast the remake wasn’t very well-acted. again, that’s because it tried to be too many things at once and didn’t really succeed at any of them. i blame this on the direction and the writing more than i do on the cast. the original had mostly second tier actors, but was well-acted nonetheless. in addition to ross, paula prentiss and peter masterson have good performances. the score had some 70s rust on it, but once you get by the style of the time it was pretty effective. there were subtleties in the score throughout the film that added to the anticipation and sense of foreboding. within the first reel, for example, there is a piano piece that sounded pretty dated to my ears, but near its conclusion there are couple deep notes played that are subtle enough to go unnoticed, but subconsciously offer a foreboding tone to the stepford setting. overall a good film that could be remade like “invasion of the body snatchers” every generation to sort of update the themes and place the fear within a new context (for “body snatchers” it was 50s – communism, 70s – new age spirituality, 90s – break down of the family unit). unfortunately this film’s remake was awful, took almost nothing from the intent of the original and only seemed to indicate that the new millennium is generation is more concerned with vapid films than real social issues. worth watching.