I'd always heard about it. The perfect home. The perfect wife. The perfect family.... Maybe a little too perfect. It's been a term of derision for decades – being a "Stepford Wife." It's a symbol of everything the feminists were fighting against in the '70s.

And yet, until now, I didn't really know what they were talking about. But finally, I've seen the movie that started the buzz. Now I know about The Stepford Wives.

"Daddy, I just saw a man carrying a naked lady."
"That's why we're moving to Stepford."
Walter Eberhart (Peter Masterson) has moved his family out of the city – away from the noise and the crime and all the things that people hate about cities. His wife Joanna (Katharine Ross) is not so sure. From the first moments that they leave their Manhattan apartment, she has a reluctant, wistful look. Though she doesn't exactly say so, she doesn't want to move to the sleepy town of Stepford.

Once they move into their new home things are bad for Joanna. While Stepford seems perfect on the surface, there is something that just seems not-quite-right about the place. The women in town are dreadfully dull – interested in nothing but looking perfect, cleaning house, and pleasuring their husbands. The only exceptions are Bobby Markowe (Paula Prentiss) and Carol Van Sant (Nanette Newman), both relatively new to town just like Joanna. The three women strike up a friendship and try to involve others in a wives' club to offset the men's club their husbands have all joined. Unfortunately, the other wives seem to care more about the newest baking product at the supermarket than any subjects of real depth.

Things then go from bad to worse when Carol, one of the few real friends Joanna has, goes away with her husband for the weekend and comes back changed. No longer the vibrant, athletic, carefree woman she was; she suddenly becomes just another robotic copy of someone out of Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver. Joanna and Bobby are determined to figure out why everyone in Stepford seems so bland, but it seems a race against time before they, too, lose themselves to the stupefying effects of Stepford....

"Two things I always carry; Tampax and RingDings. And I don't even want to think what that means."
This is quite obviously a movie from the seventies. The hair and clothes, the cars, the sensibilities of the people (a smoke in one hand and a scotch in the other) are anything but timeless. But really, it doesn't matter at all. This movie had me riveted from the first moments to the last.

Joanna is the sort of woman every woman wants to be – or at least have for a close friend. She is independent, intelligent, beautiful and fun. She has a passion for photography and wants nothing more than to make her mark on the world and be remembered. I shared her agitation when she was uprooted from her home. And I felt her fear as Stepford sucked the life out of those around her.

What I didn't like about this movie was the portrayal of the men. Despite feminist propaganda, I don't believe that most men want automatons for wives. Most men I know like being taken care of, yes; but they also like having someone who is their intellectual equal to share their lives with. They like women who are a little bit saucy, a little bit engaging, a little bit unpredictable. They want women with personality and backbone. What's the fun of the hunt if the prey walks willingly to slaughter?

"I guess I want to be remembered."
Overall, the production values are quite good, considering the era of this movie. The cinematography is interesting with good color – not always the case with 'older' movies. The acting is believable throughout. None of the characters – with the exception of some of the wives – are one dimensional. The sets and settings all look real, not 'staged' like some movies. I would hazard a guess that this movie was filmed entirely on location and not on soundstages in Hollywood or New York.

The one thing that suffers on the DVD is the sound quality. The sound levels seem a little low throughout – I had to turn up the volume considerable higher than normal just to hear the dialog. Also, there are a few scenes where the music seems a little too loud making it difficult to hear what's being said. This is not a movie I would want to watch with my elderly, hard-of-hearing aunt. I would undoubtedly be regaled with an endless stream of, "What was that she said?"

"The women all look neat and pretty."
I believe this movie was a groundbreaking social commentary in its day. And in many ways, it still is. Despite being 30 years old I found it to be fresh and entertaining. There were scenes that made me laugh, and others that made me think.

I can heartily recommend this classic film to anyone who has ever contemplated the tenuous relationship between husband and wife, between domination and submission, between fantasy and reality.

Between then... and now.
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This is a Then submission in my Then and Again writeoff. You can find it's companion Again submission here.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD