“Why?”
“Why? Because we can.”

Absolutely bonkers and brilliant. It boggles my mind how something so astoundingly progressive and still-relevant came out in the year of 1975, but I guess that goes to show just how little things change and how often history repeats itself.

The story doubles as a viscerally entertaining thriller and a pointed, complex social commentary, captivating both as a suspenseful cinematic rollercoaster ride and as an intellectual dissection of the perception of the evolving role of women in their families from the 1950s to the 1970s. 

It’s so easy to see how Jordan Peele took inspiration from this film for Get Out. A movie about a community that refuses to adapt to the increasingly loud and enlightened voices of a minority group and reacts by stunting this group’s societal advancement and instead manipulating them for their most rudimentary strengths for personal gain? Sounds reminiscent of both Peele’s 2017 horror hit and the perspectives of individuals in our country today who wish to make us “great again” by taking us back to a time in which the less powerful and less privileged were quieter and more complacent with their subservient positions in society instead of asserting their independence and proudly demanding to be accepted as they are instead of being forcibly molded into the restrictions of a homogenous society.

Bryan Forbes’s direction and Owen Roizman’s cinematography work to establish the supposed utopia of Stepford and paint it with a idyllic brush, which creates a beautiful contrast against the foreboding foreshadowing of sinister underbelly of this town. Katharine Ross and Paula Prentiss are immediately charming and enthralling audience surrogates as they investigate the mystery of their new home, and the pair are also revolutionary as a representation of a well-textured and multidimensional female friendship (incredibly rare for films in the 1970s).

Certainly one of my favorite social thrillers put to screen or script, and one of my greatest inspirations as a writer as well. The themes and critiques are as biting and applicable today as they were 44 years ago, and it’s an absolute must see for any fan of the genre in any respect.

What I would give to just sit back in a theater without any foreknowledge of the film’s twists and turns and just let all the subtle realizations wash over me for the first time.

Favorite Screenplays