Stepford Wives

Fortunately Joanna meets the effervescent and rebellious Bobby Marco, another recent arrival in Stepford who shares her concerns about the strange behaviour of the women in the community. Together they decide to set up a consciousness-raising group and rally to get the local women involved...almost to no avail! At the first meeting of the wives, the other women prefer to agonise over the cleanliness of their kitchens and talk about the wonders of "Easy-On" starch spray and baking. One other recruit is found though; a feisty redhead called Charmaine who feels restricted by her husband Ed's demands. However after a weekend away with him, Charmaine returns strangely altered, allowing her hubby to bulldoze her much-loved tennis court and confessing that she all she wanted to do was "please Ed...and boy am I gonna please him". Weird.

Mystified, Joanna and Bobby seek an answer to the zombie-like behaviour of the local women, wondering if "something in the water" might be responsible. They enlist one of Joanna's ex boyfriends, who is a scientist, to help, but this fails to pay dividends. Joanna soon comes to the frightening realisation that the town's wives undergo a change in personality after they have been resident in Stepford for roughly three months... and her time is almost up...

I won't give any more away but this is a thought-provoking and intriguing movie!! Although low on action, the film builds its sense of momentum through a growing feeling of paranoia: are the women in the town somehow being "substituted" for drone-like replacements? Or are all of Joanna's anxieties inside her own head? If you're looking for a fast-moving film you might be disappointed, but the cleverness of the movie lies in its subtlety and the way in which the events take place in a seemingly normal domestic setting.

Another reason for this movie's success lies in the acting. Katherine Ross (also of "The Graduate") puts in an intelligent, sympathetic performance as a woman who feels increasingly hemmed in by the claustrophobia of Stepford, and you really root for her as she feels she might be next on the list for "conversion". Paula Prentiss is great as Bobby, a funny, bubbly and tomboyish character determined not to become "one of those pan-scrubbers" and the rapport between her and Joanna is believable and touching. Given her determination to escape Stepford, Bobby's last few scenes are all the more poignant; I won't say any more but they make for some of the film's best moments! The supporting cast do a good job: amongst these are Peter Masterson as Walter, becoming gradually less supportive of his wife's feelings and fears and more and more influenced by the demands of the "Men's Association"; and Nanette Newman as Carol Van Sant, one of the wives who starts behaving very oddly at a barbecue, continually proclaiming "I'll just die if I don't get that recipe" (!!) Newman's role as a wife is all the more ironic considering all those "Fairy Liquid" adverts she once did (remember?!)

The movie has also attained a kitsch/camp quality over time, mostly due to the fact that it was made in the 1970s! This doesn't spoil the subtler elements to the film, rather makes it all the more entertaining! A large part of the camp appeal is down to the wives themselves - their appearance, behaviour and dialogue. According to this movie, men would like nothing better than to see their wives dressed in frilly blouses (still showing off their assets), flowery dresses and big floppy hats - hilarious. The wives all say things like "I really shouldn't say it, but I just love my brownies" (that's cakes in case you were wondering) and constantly praise their husbands' performances in the bedroom department: "You're the King....you're the Master"!! No comment!

To summarise this is a very enjoyable movie, which, as I have already mentioned, shows the dangers of male fantasies coming true and the perils that women must face having to exist in a patriarchal society. Go buy it...but don't get any ideas about changing your girlfriend...okay?!


A modern classic   February 27, 2002
ad_crumenam (Texas, USA)
23 out of 26 found this review helpful

After hearing references made again and again to The Stepford Wives, I decided to take a chance and buy it on DVD. It was only 12.99, so I figured I had very little to lose. The film is shot and directed in a very 70s style, which can be hard to follow or even annoying for younger, Gen-X viewers (like myself...I was born the year the movie came out) but if you just sit through it, it eventually gets EXTREMELY good. I did not know how the movie ended or what the plot even was, so I found the film particularly thrilling. I paid attention to the foreshadowing, but I figured that the Stepford wives were tamed into submission by coercion, beating, threats, or some other plausible method. It becomes obvious when Ross's character's best friend becomes a "Stepford Wife" that they are being replaced by robots. The sight of Ross coming face to face with her hollow-eyed double, a robot that is not quite finished, is terrifying. People my age don't have the cultural or historical perspective to understand what this film meant when it was released, but 25 years' worth of hindsight allows my younger generation to make the film our own. Feminists were extremely annoyed with this film, saying it was anti-woman, but I think the opposite is true. It is not exactly pro-woman, but it is definitely anti-man. The message I got was that men were too insecure to cope with their wives' growing independence during an era of cultural and sexual liberation, so they simply replaced them with robots.

p.s. watch out for Mary Stuart Masterson...this was her first film.


A Menacingly, Creepy Movie with Believable Acting   November 11, 1999
20 out of 27 found this review helpful

I fell in love with the beautiful Katharine Ross at age 12 when I first saw a TV Movie sequel called "Wanted, the Sundance Woman" and decided I want to see all of her movies. I always loved Horror/Suspense movies and one night I caught The Stepford Wives on cable. The movie has an above average, almost artsy quality to it, and definitely ranks with some of the best suspense films of all time. Though menacingly slow in the first half, once the second half comes around the movie really takes off. The reason I think the movie struck such a nerve with me was because she, although being a very bright woman as her doctor put it in the movie, played frightened so well.(Check out that scene with her doctor, just plain good acting, she is believable.) This is an actress who always seems to play roles very low key, yet is so effective as if she is playing a very average Joe/Josephine, A REAL PERSON! Prentiss who is also excellent, lends just the right amount of comic relief, in that dept. she is a natural. All the players do fabulously. The story seems to work because, unlike todays movies, it isn't overshadowed by Special Effects, strength is on story and it makes you do a little thinking to try & find out exactly what is going on. Although the movie has by todays standards a downbeat ending, it really is a great ending. The main character gets caught at the end. Not to say I wasn't bummed when she met her doom,(I was really upset) but it doesn't fall into typical Hollywood cliche's by doing this. I grew up in that exact type of town outside of Boston, so the movie hit's home a bit. I'm always glad to hear people make reference to the movie every once in a while, it obviously struck a nerve with the rest of the country when it came out 24 years ago. I always recomend it to people and let them borrow my video whenever. I miss Katharine Ross, and wish she would do more acting, even with her husband. She ranks up there with my favorites, Faye Dunaway, Sally Field and Ellen Burstyn. And that goes ditto for the Stepford Wives, if you appreciate a smart story laced with chills, you'll love it!


"You're the best, you're the champ, you're the master...!"   June 15, 2004
Jay Dickson (Portland, OR)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful

Well, not quite. The sad thing about Ira Levin's brilliant little satirical Gothic about the backlash against Second Wave Feminism is that it's never quite received a film adaptation that does it justice. The 2004 comic version is a travesty, but even this 1975 original is not quite as good as you'd like: the pacing is very slow, especially at the beginning; the crucial part of Walter is underwritten; and while Katharine Ross is much better (especially in the last ten minutes, when she's superb) than she was given credit for at the time it's not quite the knockout performance the part of Joanna deserves. On the other hand, there are many things that make this film worth seeing, particularly the great dialogue and the fine supporting performances by Tina Louise, Nanette Newman, and (especially) Paula Prentiss as the heroine's best friend Bobbie. Indeed, there are several parts of the film that are literally unforgettable: Newman's much-quoted "breakdown" at the pool party ("I'll just die if I don't get this recipe!"); Joanna's consciousness raising session, with the Wives breathlessly promoting the joys of cleaning products; and, most of all, the great last scene, with the Wives placidly sweeping through the supermarket in their ruffled prairie dresses and sunhats as they patiently push their shopping carts...


A fascinating, scathing, haunting tale set in the suburbs.   December 3, 1999
Miguel Cane (Mexico City, Mexico)
8 out of 14 found this review helpful

Just as much as New York City is a major character in Rosemary's Baby (1968), a tale also conceived by Ira Levin, the elegant suburban village of Stepford (completely fictional, though it feels oh-so-real!) is also a major character in the story of the undoing of Joanna Eberhart [Katharine Ross - The Graduate], loving mother, avid photographer and horrified housewife.

As Paula Prentiss's astonishing performance as kooky and lovable Bobbie Markowe gives colour and fun to the story, you can see something even more sinister underlying the serene tree-lined streets and gracious homes that are the setting of this nightmaresque movie, as seen by Bryan Forbes, who made a craft of creating serenely unnerving and haunting films.

There'll always be from now on, a woman we'll come to know as the Stepford Wife.