Stepford Connecticut is a Disneyesque nirvana for the patriarchal
hierarchy, the template for male entitlement which allows abusive relationships
to prosper: a prescient and dire warning concerning domestic violence
awareness. The film is a satire about male entitlement, ultimate power and
control, representing the social enslavement of the burgeoning feminist
movement.
The film begins with a blind female mannequin being carried by a man: a
plastic metaphor foreshadowing the inhuman narrative. As Joanna and Walter
leave the city, the film's derivative score plays like some TV soap opera,
which will contrast the brooding horror to come. Director Bryan Forbes sets the
film amid the beautiful friendly suburbs, bathing the film in bright daytime
afternoon delight; he allows the friction between the couple to crescendo as a
family melodrama. But monsters lurk in the shadows of Stepford and gather at a
dark secluded mansion, home of the Stepford Men’s Association. Joanna befriends
Bobbie, another bra-less newcomer in town; they attempt to subvert the
superficial and wholesome aura of this strange environment. When they finally convene
a meeting of Stepford wives to create their own feminist association, they
discover a mindless and one-dimensional attitude: these women exist only to
clean and serve their husbands. They spout commercial jingles and speak
earnestly of their housework, like drones…or robots.
William Goldman’s script builds the suspense like tiny cogs that firmly fit
together: from Joanna’s cluttered kitchen to Charmaine’s new attitude, and when
Bobbie finally succumbs to the disease that proliferates the town Joanna believe
she is going crazy. When Joanna voices her concerns, the horror cannot be
explained in mere words, and she veers towards a nervous breakdown. Finally,
her buxom doppelganger sees through her eyes darkly, and she is subsumed into
the great American Dream.
Final Cut: (B+)
