Yesterday, desperate for something new to watch on TV, I watched the remake of  The Stepford Wives. At first, I found the movie annoying in its one-sidedness. After a while, I began to see that the one sidedness was part of the story, and started ignoring it. Once I did that, the movie was almost entertaining (yes, I said “almost”).

Near the end of the picture, in the first “revelation scene”, I realized that the movie was fundamentally a “role reversal” picture. By switching the gender roles around, the story made a lot more sense, and was a lot more “sinister” in nature. It definitely wouldn’t have been made that way, but it was interesting to look at the picture from that angle.

The final twist was also interesting and one I didn’t expect at all. I won’t describe it so not to spoil the picture for anyone masochistic enough to choose to watch it.

All in all, the final resolution showed some nice balance, though not enough to make the picture into anything but a bad remake. I did think it was interesting that a movie making a statement about the subjugation of women (if that was what they were trying to do, its hard to say) only had one actor with star billing: Nichole Kidman. Even Matthew Broderick was relegated to billing “under the title”.

As a side note, what’s with these remakes that either ridicule (Stepford Wives, Starsky and Hutch) or ignore (all the MI’s) the originals? It’s a safe bet that the folks making these movies weren’t fans of the originals, and they’re basically just cashing in on the name recognition, or are they trying to “say” something more significant? If they are, they’re doing a lousy job of it.

6/12/2006 5:03:34 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)      Comments [0]  TV | general
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