Stepford Wives, The (2004) MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +2 Content: -2

Joanna (Nicole Kidman) is a successful network television producer on the rise of ever-increasing popularity in this comedic drama. After a freak mishap, the cutthroat world of network television lets Joanna go, leaving her in utter shock. Her husband, Walter (Matthew Broderick), decides to take his wife and their two kids from Manhattan to the small town of Stepford, Conn., to get away from the busy and frantic city to start a new life. The women of Stepford are always smiling and seem to have perfectly happy family lives. The townspeople have a caring attitude quite different from that in the business world. It seems like the perfect place to live and raise a family. But Joanna is in for the surprise of a lifetime. She soon realizes that the small town of Stepford is anything but a slow-paced, normal town. Also starring Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill and Bette Midler.

A relevant theme is delivered while providing some hysterical laughs in The Stepford Wives. Joanna and Walter face a troubled marriage as Walter desires perfection in his wife and doesnt realize that hes expecting the impossible. He has not learned to accept her, or anyone else for that matter, as she is. Commendably, he seeks, not a divorce, but a better marriage after many troubled years. Thanks to significant efforts on Walters part, the marriage and their love for each other is revived. They both nurture the relationship with consistent old-fashioned hard work. While this is a positive aspect of the film, the 10 occurrences of profanity and excessive use of sexual connotations truly steal from this positive portrayal of marriage. What could have been a clean, humorous and delightfully enjoyable film unfortunately earns a negative acceptability rating from Preview.

Preview Reviewer: Troy Dandrea
Distributor: Paramount