By Dave Workman

"The Stepford Wives"

Directed by: Frank Oz

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Glenn Close, Jon Lovitz and Roger Bart

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual innuendo, thematic material and adult language)

Best suited for: Reminiscing male chauvinists

Least suited for: Thriller fans, parody fans, black comedy fans, speculative fiction fans (this film caters to none of the above)

Acorn’s Rating Guide:

In "The Stepford Wives," hard-driven TV exec Joanna (Nicole Kidman) is abruptly canned by her network and suffers a nervous breakdown. Her meek, dutiful husband (Matthew Broderick) moves the family from Manhattan to the sublime Connecticut countryside in an attempt to salvage both his wife’s health and their sputtering marriage. They hope to find Zen amid the splendid mansions and rolling green hills of Stepford.

Barely settled, Joanna begins to realize that something’s not quite right in the new neighborhood. The local housewives are all blissfully perfect—or are they simply a distorted reflection of Joanna’s paranoid, somewhat delusional imagination?

Stepford’s other recent arrivals, Bobbie and Roger (Bette Midler and Roger Bart), are blatantly odd-ball, and Joanna finds solace in their company—until they also succumb to the bland, cookie-cutter persona of "Stepford perfection." Soon, Joanna finds herself alone in a suburban nightmare (the perfect cupcake, the perfect picnic—gasp!) that everyone, including her husband, believes ideal.

One can almost hear the Tupperware burp a mile away.

Filmgoers are either aware of the original "Stepford Wives" or else not—and this updated rendition fails for both parties. If you’re unfamiliar with the 1975 film, you’ll find this version moving far too quickly and missing too many pieces to fully engage your attention. Director Frank Oz assumes you’re aware of the original’s premise—just who (or what) are the Stepford wives? If you don’t have a clue, then you’ll miss much of what is supposed to pass as parody this time around.

The newest "Stepford" contains almost no suspense—numerous suspicions, realizations and coincidences fall quickly into place. The film begins well (reminiscent of 1976’s savvy, media-bashing "Network"), but the similarity fades. "The Stepford Wives" doesn’t know if it’s black comedy or campy sci-fi thriller or twisted social commentary. I’m not even sure if it cares.

The normally dexterous Oz seems lost in the material here. Rumors of problems plaguing production and of a last-minute editing frenzy—not a good sign—seem evident in the finished product. "The Stepford Wives" suffers greatly from a lack of continuity. Several preposterously coincidental moments (Broderick’s fumbling successfully at each wife’s digital "termination" panel, for instance) signal a weak script. There are also highly inexplicable elements. Hey, if your kingdom depended upon some squirrelly new neighbor obeying orders, following protocol, pushing all the right buttons, would you give him free reign? Unattended? Unobserved?

I think not.

For those familiar with the original version, you might remember a dark and somewhat soap-operatic cautionary tale (sort of faux-horror) of sexual equality—a typical guy’s knee-jerk reaction to the burgeoning women’s liberation movement. ("The Handmaid’s Tale" was a similarly sinister vision of womankind’s future.) In the ’70s, the "Betty Crocker" stereotype of a suburban housewife seemed a curse to some, a salve to others. These days the illusion just seems ancient.

Some viewers might even find this remake mildly offensive in its attempt to initiate cheap laughs instead of reevaluating the testosterone-driven premise of producing the "perfect" spouse. "The Stepford Wives" could be construed as a giddily obscene gesture directed at the sexual revolution’s unachieved goals.

Ouch.

Two notes of minor interest:

1. The opening credit sequence is as good as any I’ve seen recently—a montage of film clips depicting the American housewife’s love affair (circa 1950) with the modern kitchen appliance. Should the Oscars inaugurate an award in this category, "Stepford" would, in this case, have my vote. 2. Rarely have I been so aware of a film’s attempt to make a quick buck. The perfectly framed Alpha-Bits box in the supermarket scene, for instance. Not since the perfectly framed Coke can in the abysmal "Leonard, Part 6" has product placement been so tactlessly, in-your-face apparent. Can we spell SUCKER in our cereal bowl tomorrow morning?

In a nutshell: "The Stepford Wives" is one film that did not need a makeover. Some may find its lame attempt at parody worth a chuckle or two (there were a couple of decent laughs), but its pointless core lacks suspense and believability. Rabid editing butchered what might have been even a halfway decent effort, and, frankly, only those with a passing interest in the generation-old original may find the film worth a glance, if only for old time’s sake.