The Stepford Wives (1975) · 12:24am Oct 10th, 2016
So, how full does Queen Chrysalis have to be before she's full and gets her own hippy dippy coat of paint? I only ask because Thorax made like Zeppelin and gave her all of his love and she still didn't get a paint job or even a buff job. Heck the rest of changelings at the hive just covered her in their love beams and it still wasn't enough. I haven't seen a woman that insatiable since porn star Andrea True did the song More More More and still never got enough.
After watching the last episode of the Rise of the Equestrian Empire I've come to the conclusion that I couldn't live there. I need a place where there's real conflict and not, "We don't know which banner to put up," type of conflict. I have to live in a place where opposable thumbs are the norm and the phrase, "How many people wanna kick some ass," isn't grounds for a hate crime. I need to be in a place where while being polite is a good thing, that it's also possible for guys to be guys and not monosyllabic plow pushers. I guess I just need a certain amount of variety in my life unlike the characters in this installment's movie.
The Stepford Wives is a movie about a woman who moves out of New York City with her husband and kids to an idyllic suburban town called Stepford. The schools are great, the people are friendly and everything is so perfect you want to flick a booger at the screen to see if it sprouts wings and flies to Detroit.
Yet, all is not as it seems and before long Joanna (Katharine Ross) and Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) are doing there best to get to the bottom of why the wives of Stepford act like the housewives of 1950s tv commercials. In other words, how dare these women be so boring. Why do they never complain about their husbands or their kids? Why will they, "just die if (they) don't get that recipe?"
Aside from the book it's based on, the movie pulls from various concepts brought up in movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders From Mars, etc. however, instead of the enemy being communism it's something else. The acting is okay. Paula Prentiss adds some life to a story that, for the most part feels like there aren't any real stakes until near the end.
The biggest flaws of this movie are the overall story and its execution. We're supposed to believe that there is marital tension between Joanna and Walter but, they spend so little time on screen together that other than the husband being a possible workaholic we don't really see it. Oh, we're told about it. When one of the kids says, "We don't like it when you fight," it indicates that it happens. However, if we're not seeing it it's not happening. Speaking of the kids they're never around. Joanna talks like she's balancing all this stuff as a stay at home type with aspirations to be a photographer but, the kids are never really underfoot stopping her from doing anything. It just all feels very flimsy.
Then plot points and characters just kind of show up as needed. Need a chemist? Joanna knows one even though it was never mentioned before or after (that would have been a good point of conflict in the marriage). Need to overhear something you shouldn't? Just barge on in to someone's house while they're going at it. Need an obvious bad guy, you know the type that wears the black turtleneck? He shows up at a party at the prescribed time. Heck if he had a mustache and said, "Bwa ha ha ha," it wouldn't have mattered. Joanna doesn't pick up on much including what the obvious answer to all of her problems is.
Ultimately, this movie is a rather mediocre men suck flick. Prentiss and Ross are game for their roles and do their best in them. Heck even some of the camera shots are effective at dropping hints for the audience to pick up on. Unfortunately, the plot is half baked with ultra thin characters who make worse decisions then the councilors at Crystal Lake or the alicorn princesses at the end of MLP season six (seriously you didn't try to imprison her in stone or something). Maybe if they would have gotten that recipe they wouldn't have to die. (Or at the very least Joanna could have snagged the kids earlier and asked for a divorce. Just saying.)
Interestingly enough this movie spawned a sequel and a remake. Well, at least it's better than those two movies.
Stats: 3 dead bodies (sorta), 1 half hidden breast, 1 mating call of the two backed Bermuda Tarantula, 1 stabbing, 1 cutting, 1motor vehicle accident, Fire poker to the head, gratuitous boring product conversations, gratuitous "club" meetings.
Shout Outs:
Paula Prentiss as Bobbie for being the life of the movie and saying things like, " I can't figure out this burg. It's like maids have been declared illegal, and the housewife with the neatest place gets Robert Redford for Christmas. And believe me, if that's the prize, I'd enter, but nobody'll tell what the contest rules are. Cheers!"
Katharine Ross as Joanna for getting into the scotch and having a breakdown at her out of town therapist's place.
You know I've never seen this version only the remake.
I'll tell ya though, I was glad that Chrysalis' thing worked out the way it did. FINALLY we get a villain who doesn't reform.
Chryssie, don't you ever change.
4248866 That can be easily remedied!
4249071 I think I want her to modify something. Her tactics. Clearly the whole "Oh man gonna subvert then invade" thing hasn't worked. She needs to draw power from something else and just work quietly through the fabric of society. It may take years but, sow enough seeds of distrust and you can yield a bountiful harvest.
4250497 I never seen the original or the sequel just the remake. It sounds like it was a lot better than the first.
[youtube=4mcVodJmBlU]
This looks interesting. What do you think?
4263362 It could be an interesting movie. Verbinski usually has an interesting visual style if nothing else. As far as the original Stepford Wives goes honestly it's not hard to find on several prominent websites. It's certainly a better movie than the remake. In spite of my saying it's just mediocre the fact they ended it the way they did (even if it raises questions about Joanna's physical strength) it could have been so much worse.