Joanna Eberhart, a wildly succesful president of a TV Network, after a series of shocking events suffers a nervous breakdown and is moved by her milquetoast of a husband, Walter, from Manhattan to the chic, upper-class and very modern planned community of Stepford, Connecticut. Once there, she makes good friends with the ascerbic Bobbie Markowitz, a jewish writer who's also a recovering alcoholic. Together they find out, much to their growing stupor and-then horror, that all the housewives in town are strangely blissful, and somehow... doomed. What is going on behind the closed doors of the Stepford Men's Association and the Stepford Day Spa? Why is everything perfect here? Will it be too late for Joanna and Bobbie when they finally find out? [TRAILER]

STEVEN SNYDER'S REVIEW

What a gutless and apologetic film this is, a story of sporadically interesting thoughts that then sacrifices its ideas, talent and intelligence for a few cheap laughs.

It is a poor update of the 1975 Bryan Forbes cult film, altering a scathing and dark bit of social commentary into a modern pile of cheap escapism, complete with present-day jokes about reality TV, AOL and, offensively enough, homosexuality.

Yes, Hollywood has never met a good idea that it couldn’t eviscerate.

What exists here is essentially a skit-based comedy with a dark subplot that only occasionally rises to the surface. It features Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) as a recently-fired, burnt-out television executive. Her husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick), is another TV executive who quits in protest of his wife’s dismissal.

Together, they leave the chaos of the city for the quiet and calming Connecticut suburbs - for the secluded, gated community of Stepford with its perfect homes, lawns, families and wives. Walter is immediately indoctrinated into the town’s men’s club, where he meets Mike (Christopher Walken), the town mayor. And Joanna is escorted through the city by Claire (Glenn Close), Mike’s wife, who teaches the town’s women about cooking, exercise and gift-giving.

All the while, Joanna becomes increasingly uncomfortable with what she sees. The wives of Stepford are a little too perfect and a little too bland, and their perfect marriages reek of artificiality. “They’re not like us!” she screams to Walter as she demands to leave.

I will not divulge the deep, dark secret of Stepford here, in the hopes that someone out there intent on seeing this film has managed to avoid the previews which give the ending away. When it is finally revealed, however, it is not so much a revelation that deepens the story so much as an arbitrary twist that jerks it from a slapstick comedy to a darker, socially-oriented commentary on gender roles, misogyny and marital relations.

Director Frank Oz (“What About Bob”) is not a filmmaker known for his subtlety, and in “Stepford Wives” he proves unable to switch between these two gears successfully. His biggest mistake may be the film’s opening sequence, in which Joanna announces the network’s new schedule to an audience of affiliates, hyping one reality show after another in a predictable mockery of modern-day mainstream TV.

This scene, however, comes off like a mediocre Saturday Night Live skit. It is wholly unbelievable, poorly delivered, and honestly not all that funny. And in starting things on this foot, we do not identify with Joanna or her world, but rather wait for the next one-liner to fly our way.

The confusion that results consistently ruins the film’s messages. In darker moments, we’re not sure if we are supposed to listen or giggle. As the story’s revelations tear Joanna apart emotionally, we are increasingly unable to care about this transparent, two-dimensional comedic character.

Bette Midler, as Joanna’s first friend in Stepford, steals the show because she realizes the film she’s in, and plays her part like it was a stand-up routine. As for Kidman, Broderick and Close, they make the mistake of believing that they are part of a serious social critique.

The final nail in the coffin is Oz’s apologizing for the film’s edgier motifs concerning feminism and domestic suppression. In not one, not two, but three belabored sequences, we are lectured to and told how to interpret this movie and then, as if this was not enough of an insult to our intelligence, the movie ends on a chipper note that affirms everything is back to the way it should be. Whew!

Not only does the opening sequence render “Stepford’s” characters unbelievable, and its slapstick interrupt and destroy the story’s messages, but the few intelligent strides the film has taken are erased in a final bit of backpedaling meant to leave us feeling happy.

But what’s the point? To send us away with the same robotic smiles as those on the screen?

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