The Stepford Wives

This sumptuously photographed and art-directed remake of THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975) replaces feminist paranoia with mild satirical barbs at Martha Stewart-inflected conformity, but shoots itself in the perfectly manicured foot by pretending that the novel's disturbing implications don't matter. High-powered, black-clad Manhattan television executive Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is precipitously fired after an embarrassing incident involving a disgruntled contestant whose humiliation on one of her salacious reality shows drives him murderously insane. While Joanna undergoes electroshock therapy for her subsequent nervous breakdown, her milquetoast husband, perpetual...