Movie Review of The Stepford Wives

Joanna Eberhart, a successful president of a TV station, is trapped by her own creation, several ultra feministic programs. Fired and frustrated, she, together with her family, moves to a town, called Stepford, where she puts her effort to adapt to and to make up her defects in order to save her marriage. However, as time goes by, she discovers that the entire women in the town are behaving weirdly, and she will be “perfected” into that form, too. After destroying the horrible scheme of changing all the women and men into robots by a foremost brain surgeon and gene engineer, Joanna, finally, gets the point that “perfect doesn’t work” and retrieves her marriage.

“I can do better.” When such words shouted out from an intelligent and talented woman, Joanna, somewhat a perfect leader at her work area, I can figure out that she is a super feminist without needing the slightest effort. She is a workaholic who focuses too much on her career, while cares little about her family and marriage. When at the lowest point of her career, she comes to understand the importance of family and love. At Stepford, her bravery and smartness impress me very much, which should be one factor of the victory that she and her husband unfold the secret of Stepford and destroy the scheme. Moreover, it’s also her personality that brings her back to her position and behaving herself in the end.

There is one scene I remember pretty clear. When having done something shouldn’t, Joanna isn’t supposed to stay at the TV station any longer. A series of her odd and unnatural expressions reflect what is going on in her mind when gets the news from her boss that she is fired. First she tries to understand what the boss is saying, then feels unbelievable when gets the boss’s idea, finally forces herself to be magnanimous and take it well like nothing has happened. Out of the office, she seems to be the last one in the station to know that she is out. At this moment she is still behaving and acting normally. However, the desperate roar in the elevator gives away all her pretence-she can’t tolerate it at all.

At the beginning of the movie, Joanna, a legend in the television industry, is brilliant and to some extent extreme. Contrastingly, in the end, she is still a success in her career, while much humbler and plainer. She suffers a lot when she is at Stepford, yet she learns a great deal there. In my opinion, people can realize what aspect of their deed is undesirable and they can change it into a desirable way. Every single person can make a difference if only he or she learns from the experiences and puts an effort. At times the consciousness may come in a bitter way that only if one suffers from it, he or she can wake up and get the point. However, in most of these cases people can think deeper and change completer.

One more thing I should point out is that never do things without measure. The TV programs created by Joanna are obviously over and egregious. Therefore most people certainly can’t bear it and will never touch it. Moreover, such extreme actions and views can surely offend someone, who will stand out and do something to stop it. In the movie, Joanna is kicked out by the sharers, who even do this on the single and simple purpose of self-protection, because they have already got the point that what she does is quite feverish and rather dangerous. So please think it again before setting about doing something. This deed is always better than taking some actions first and then patching up the holes and defects.