看电影学英语The Stepford Wives(复制娇妻)

June 11, 2004

Joanna Eberhart: Nicole Kidman

Walter Kresby: Matthew Broderick

Bobbie Markowitz: Bette Midler

Mike Wellington: Christopher Walken

Claire Wellington: Glenn Close

Sarah Sunderson: Faith Hill

Roger Bannister: Roger Bart

Dave Markowitz: Jon Lovitz

片名：The Stepford Wives

译名：复制娇妻

导演：弗兰克·奥兹Frank Oz

主演：妮可儿·基德曼Nicole Kidman

　　　贝蒂·米勒 Bette Midler

　　　马修·布罗德里克Matthew Broderick

　　　克里斯托夫·沃肯Christoper Walken

　　　乔恩·洛维茨Jon Lovitz

　　　罗杰·巴特Roger Bart

类型：喜剧/惊悚/音乐

级别：未定

发行：美国派拉蒙影业Paramount Pictures

上映日期：2004年6月11日

官方网站：

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Comedy, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Drama and Thriller

1 hr. 33 min. Stepford has a secret: all of the wives are way too perfect, and all of

the husbands are way too happy. "The Stepford Wives," a comic re-imagining of the

1975 suspense classic, follows the tale that unfolds when a young couple moves from

Manhattan to the upper-class suburb of Connecticut. Once there, they soon discover

　　哦！不用妄做猜测了，她就是前文所说的乔安娜。克莱斯比夫人热衷于各种糕点的烘制：像什么杯形小蛋糕、夹心蛋糕、面包圈、咸奶油松糕等等，反正老公孩子喜欢什么，她就做什么。另外，她还喜欢定时擦洗丈夫的轿车、掸掉桌子上的浮尘、每天早上将被子
叠得整整齐齐……她甚至忘记了单词的正确拼写，因为她只需要每天穿着围裙，脸上涂上
细致得体的淡妆，耐心地等待着丈夫的归来--这样的妻子仍然有被“换”掉的危险，看来
人的贪念真的是永无止境，你给了他更好，他就想得到最好。

沃尔特·克莱斯比

　　克莱斯比是斯戴弗“男人协会”妄自尊大的新会员，在会所，他可以随意抽烟、与同
仁打赌较劲，还可以把脚舒服地放在茶几上而不用看老婆的脸色。对了，他尤其喜欢懒散
地倚在沙发上观察美丽的妻子乔安娜将他收集来摆在橱柜上的各种稀奇古怪的小饰品擦得
闪闪发亮。

大卫·马克威兹夫人

　　马克威兹夫人就是芭比，她喜欢将自己描述成是“真空吸尘器迷”。她特别愿意打扫
床底下、地下室的墙角、书架的最上面以及其它别人永远都不可能注意到的地方。芭比总
是兴高采烈，甚至有点疯疯颠颠，她同时还是一个小有名气的作家。
大卫·马克威兹(乔恩·洛维茨饰)

　　大卫是斯戴弗最为普通的小市民角色，但是他也有自己出众的地方，在“男人协会”
举办的打嗝和放屁比赛中，他可是常胜将军。

罗杰·拜内斯特(罗杰·巴特饰)

　　罗杰是一个建筑师，他迫切地希望成为"男人协会"的一员，却未果，因为他是一名同
性恋。但这并不意味着罗杰就不喜欢看刺激的赛车比赛，他也和其他男人一样在电脑游戏
中用3D骑兵杀死虚拟的怪兽，高兴的时候也会用拳头轻击同伴的肩膀。
迈克·威灵顿(克里斯托夫·沃肯饰)

The experience is like a new production of a well-known play. The original suspense has evaporated, and you focus on the adaptation and acting. Here you can also focus on the new screenplay by Paul Rudnick, which is rich with zingers. Rudnick, having committed one of the worst screenplays of modern times ("Isn't She Great,"
the Jacqueline Susann story), redeems himself with barbed one-liners; when one of
the community planners says he used to work for AOL, Joanna asks, "Is that why
the women are so slow?"

Nicole Kidman stars as Joanna Eberhart, a high-powered TV executive who is fired
after the victim of one of her reality shows goes on a shooting rampage. Her husband Walter (Matthew Broderick) resigns from the same network, where he worked under her, and moves with his wife and two children to the gated community of Stepford, Conn.

Christopher Walken is Claire's husband and seems to be running Stepford; it's the
kind of creepy role that has Walken written all over it, and he stars in a Stepford
promotional film that showcases another one of his unctuous explanations of the
bizarre. A new touch this time: Stepford has a gay couple, and Roger (Roger Bart),
the "wife," is flamboyant to begin with, until overnight, strangely, he becomes a
serious-minded congressional candidate.

What's going on here? You probably know, but I can't tell you. When Ira Levin's
original novel was published in 1972, feminism was newer, and his premise satirized
the male desire for tame, sexy wives who did what they were told and never
complained. Rudnick and director Frank Oz don't do anything radical with the original
premise (although they add some post-1972 touches, like the Stepford-style ATM
machine), but they choose comedy over horror, and it's a wise decision.
Kidman plays a character who's not a million miles away from her husband-killer
in "To Die For" (1995), even though this time she's the victim. Bette Midler is
defiantly subversive as the town misfit. And Walken is ... Walken.

The movie is surprisingly short, at 93 minutes including end titles (the 1975 film
was 115 minutes long). Maybe it needs to be short. The secret is obvious fairly early.
(A woman goes berserk and when Walter says she was probably just sick, Joanna
says, "Walter, she was sparking!") It could probably work as a springboard for heavy-
duty social satire, but that's not what audiences expect from this material, and Rudnick pushes about as far as he can without tearing the envelope.

Some movies are based on short stories, some on novels. "The Stepford Wives" is
little more than an anecdote, and like all good storytellers, Oz and Rudnick don't
meander on their way to the punchline.

C+
2-1/2 stars (out of 4)

"The Stepford Wives," a remake of the 1975 movie thriller about suburban wives
who have been turned into smiling, submissive robots, is a nightmare comedy that
often succeeds as comedy -- but definitely fails as a nightmare. That's more damaging
than you might first think. This "Stepford," directed by Frank Oz and written by Paul
Rudnick (collaborators on "In & Out") made me laugh rather than shiver. And, without tension and fear, the story -- based on Ira Levin's genuinely scary novel --
can't really reach us.

In a way, this movie, which opens at 12:01 a.m. Friday, is a bit like the perfect,
but mysteriously mechanized wives of its title: denizens of the dream Connecticut
suburb of Stepford, which is secretly the site of a horrendous social experiment: male
chauvinism running amok. Like those eerily doll-like wives with their mannequin grace,
the movie is gorgeous and expensive-looking, packed with plush production values
and a dream cast (Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Christopher
Walken and Glenn Close). And, in a way, it says and does all the right things -- even,
seemingly, the right subversive things. But something is missing, and it begins with
the lack of suspense. In the remake, Joanna Eberhart (Kidman) is a high-powered TV
network head. Fired after a reality show backfires violently, she and her affably
supportive hubby ex-network veep Walter Kresby (Broderick) flee mean old
Manhattan, with their two kids, for Stepford, a gated New England suburb full of
plush homes and plusher-looking people -- especially the wives.

Greeted by the chillingly smiley Claire Wellington (Close), wife of the even more
menacing Mike (Walken), they seem to have found an only slightly plastic paradise.
But as Joanna and her two newfound Stepford pals, earthy feminist author Bobbie
Markowitz and tart-tongued gay architect Roger Bannister (Roger Bart, of the
stage "The Producers") discover, something is poisonous in Eden.
But the new "Stepford" doesn't. Trying to be more antic and cuttingly funny, it
misses the premise's shivery tension. The story loses us at precisely the moment it
should put us in the vise: when Joanna and her buddies invade the Wellington
mansion to see what's up with Wellington's sinister Stepford Men's Association. That
scene, a golden opportunity for thrills and laughs, is instead tossed off as a little joke -
and that happens too often. Rudnick and Oz start digging us in the ribs from the
very beginning. And though it works at first -- with a first scene that amusingly
satirizes corporate TV -- the suspense never kicks in. And I would argue
that "Stepford Wives" must function as a nightmare, first and foremost, for the satire
to work.

On the surface, Kidman seems an ideal choice for a sexy and rebellious (and
powerful) heroine, just as Midler and Bart are spot-on for outrageous sidekicks,
Broderick for an ambivalent seemingly good-guy husband, Chris Walken (definitely) for
a demonic antagonist and Close for his evil helpmate. But, good as they all are, or
could be, only Close gives a truly satisfying performance with the perfect pseudo-
Martha Stewart smile and manners that kill.

Likewise, the movie works better in theory than in the flesh. The new "Stepford
Wives" does give us a new ending, a climactic showdown and a new supermarket
last scene: something that goes beyond the dark defeatism of the original. I was
grateful for that. But the rest of the movie squanders a terrific cast and opportunities. The '70s may have passed, but the spirit of "Stepford" lives;
unfortunately that robot touch affects the world of big-budget, well-intentioned
movies as well.

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