The Stepford Wives

Glenn Close, Bette Midler and Roger Bart (who plays one half of a gay couple slated for Stepfordizing) are hilarious, and even Nicole Kidman flashes comedic gifts not seen since "To Die For."

The 1975 movie tilted toward horror instead of comedy. Now here's a version that tilts the other way, and I like it a little better.

It's hilarious -- and on purpose, too. This is the first satisfying adult summer comedy set in New England to come out of Hollywood since "The Witches of Eastwick" in 1987.

I had a fabulous time. Well, I did once I accepted that it was a campfest--a great Provincetown drag show of The Stepford Wives.

A film full of smart laughs.

You feel some of the strain in this immaculately shot, designed and costumed farce, but it's fast and the cast is lively, even though a lost-looking Broderick rarely gets to shoot his patented bewildered look.

Only Close, in a majestically, maniacally brittle demonstration of Stepford overdrive, has the courage to show how nutty the pursuit of domestic perfection is. In this mess of a film, she is perfection.

At no time do the men -- that is, the straight ones -- believably hold the upper hand. In the new town of Stepford, there's no bitterness, no struggle, no competition, none of the scars of the sexual revolution. There's just gay apparel.

Close gets laughs, as does Bette Midler as a Jewish rebel. But the sting is gone.

It was somebody's nitwit idea to rip out the story's guts and brains for a sour sellout of a finale -- which finds the filmmakers behaving exactly like Stepford men and turning an original into a dummy.