Yet another winner from Nicole Kidman – the woman has the midas touch. I’ve not seen (or read) the original, so can’t comment on its faithfulness, but this version was absolutely brill!
The casting and acting was top notch – mind you the heavy guns were out; Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, Bette Midler… And there was the light but oh so effective touch of comic genius. A quick look at IMDb suggests the plot follows a very similar line to the original version, although my feeling that was horror while this was most certainly comedy.
I guess the basic premise is no secret, but I love the noughties update that all the Stepford men are those who (formerly) had to live in the shadow of high flying woman. Plus the last 5 or 10 minutes were really good – unusually for films these days it caught me by surprise too.
Probably doesn’t quite make it into the “own-er” category (unless you happen to run a marriage prep course, in which case it might be an interesting talking point), but is an absolute must for a rental, and almost certainly worth setting the video for when it makes it terrestrial. Easily the best of my recent batch of films – on a par with Kung-Hu Hustle.