The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

Genre: Science-fiction / Thriller

Directed by: Bryan Forbes
Starring: Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss and Peter Masterson
Running time: 115 minutes

 

A young wife and professional photographer, Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross), moves from NYC to the fictional town of Stepford, Connecticut, with her husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and their two children. She quickly starts to feel lonely in this quaint little town. She’s a rebel at heart and she finds it suspicious that most of the other wives in town are completely submissive to their husbands, who are all members of the Stepford’s Men Association. She finds a friend in Bobbie Markowe (Paula Prentiss), another young wife who finds the situation quite suspicious. Together, they start investigating the city of Stepford trying to understand what is going on. What will they find?

Contrary to the remake that would come almost three decades later, this original film based on the book of the same name by Ira Levin is given a very serious tone. There is an aura of creepiness around the whole thing. The movie is built around the growing paranoia of Katharine Ross’ character towards the city of Stepford and the men within it. As they say, it’s not because you are paranoid that they are not really after you.

So, in this movie, director Bryan Forbes worked on setting a certain mood and atmosphere, and he did it well. The actors also displayed some good acting chops to make this Sci-fi/Thriller a successful one. The tension builds towards the ending, and I was certainly kept interested all the way through. There are a few little corny aspects to this story, but I think it was to be expected considering the subject matter and the era in which the movie was made. The pacing is also a little slow. All things considered a very entertaining offbeat movie that is well worth a watch.

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