At the end of the film when we see Joanna in the supermarket, she looks more normal than the other women. her eyes are different and she looks more like herself. I always wondered if she was still her old self just posing as a robotic wife.
shareNo. She's all dolled up and the way she loads her cart and addresses the other wives is the clear indication (other than the "murder" scene) beforehand that she no longer is an independent free thinking person. The ending of Levin's book supports this as well.
I think that they take the real wives eyes and put them into the robots, but thats just my take on it.
Still, i LOVE that flick!
I think that the real women were killed and replaced with the robots. If you recall, Diz worked at one time at Disneyland where they have rides with robots that look like real people. Diz obviously improved on the original concept.
As for the eyes, when the men were meeting at the Eberhart's house, Ike Mazzard was sketching Joanna, taking particular care with her eyes. The eyes always tell the truth, so he was trying to get it as realistic as possible.
Plus when Joanna is at last confronted with her double, the double is approaching her winding some sort of scarf in her hand as if she were going to use it to strangle the real Joanna.
She's all robot! And she cooks as good as she looks.
shareI hoped that was the case back when I first saw the film in 1975. Alas, it's not - Joanna is gone.
shareAt the end, during the closeup there, you can see the pain in those eyes. Like she is almost trapped inside that body, screaming to be let out.
I think they did a very good job with that small closeup there. It's almost perfect.
You're quite right. Very well put. Very intelligent observation. Those eyes were the real Joanna's eyes in the robot. They were the only real things left. And they contained her soul. Her soul was screaming in pain at the injustice that was done to its human vessel.
shareI don't mean to sound flippant here, but obviously they were the real eyes! Catherine Ross played the robot too!
shareThat scene is one of the most incredible scenes in a movie ever. It says so much about, women, America, consumerism, conformity. It's not just that the women of Stepford are trapped inside robots. It's that American women are trapped by materialism and status seeking just as much as their rat-race husbands. And it's achingly sad at the same time.
shareNot just in the US I'm afraid… and not just the women…
Fear is the mother of morality.
Sheesh, knock it off. Joanna was dead, so her eyes were dead; her soul was not contained in the eyes, though that awful look does indicate the truth of matters.
Poor Joanna. Thank God for the sequel, where the robots (and possibly some living, controlled women) go haywire and kill the men.
I totally agree and i also share this theory.
Hark back to the scene when the men's association come round to the house for a drink with Joanna's husband. Joanna's picture is drawn in preparation for her robot face. The drawing show no wrinkles on the sides of her eyes. this is important to remember.....
.....in the end supermarket scene, the director focuses in on Joanna's eyes-she has wrinkles and it is the real Joanna.
I think this movie is fantastic...but...there's alot of things unanswered:
-the room with the dog in it+robot Joanna? Do the real wives get killed then replaced by the robot. What's the point? What happens when the men grow old and have wives that never age?
-the old boyfirend of Joanna's-why didnt he come to the rescue?
-why was the psychiatrist away for those 2 days-last minute deal? DESPERATE TO GET AWAY?
-why didnt the husbands just divorce their wives and make robots?
(That probably has to do with the control/misogyny theme)
Anyway-i think Joanna wrestled with her robot-she got strangled then fainted. Diz thought she was dead and left to gather the men. In the meantime-she awoke and crept upon the robot and whacked it with the fire rod then laid it out in the same place she fell.
This allows Joanna to play along as the robot to her husband and the mens association, making timefor her to GET OUT FO REAL!!!
tHAT'S MY ENDING.
I like your ending too kane!! I wondered about the wrinkles myself...why design a 'fantasy' robot and put wrinkles on it??
Perhaps this was to fool the children/any friends she had left elsewhere/the psychiatrist that she was still the 'real' Joanna and not a robot?
Because if anyone she'd confided her worries or they overheard her worries prior to her death came to see her, they'd instantly see she was literally perfect...no wrinkles no moles no nothing. And maybe they'd be suspicious.
I bet the wrinkles were 'removable' too!
I agree with the poster who said that the reason they didn't just divorce their wives and then make robots was indeed control. They wanted complete control over their wives, even if it meant killing them. Killing them would be the ultimate control in their sick minds as well. They liked their wives visually, so made robots like them. They wanted slaves though, not human beings with minds.
I think Joanna's eyes are so 'mournful' at the end because that's the way Ike Mazzard drew them in the sketch he made. I honestly remember thinking when I saw the sketch "Wow her eyes look so sad!" Either he drew them this way because Joanna looked that way (she was unhappy at the party) or he drew & then made the eyes in the robot that way in order to increase Walter's pleasure: He had a constant reminder of who 'beat' who and who was in control.
As to why the dog was in the room with robotic Joanna, I think it was to both familiarize the dog with the *new* Joanna (dogs both smell and sense strangers and/or strange THINGS) so he wouldn't alert anyone to something amiss...and also so Walter could 'familiarize' himself and become comfortable with new robotic Joanna and new 'family' scenario (hence the replicated bedroom) and keep things running smoothly for Diz and the rest of the men.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
I agree she was a trapped soul behind the eyes. Diz had said she was the most challenging for them to replicate. I believe her soulful depth was not easily hidden even by such an artful master.
shareI assumed (at first) that Joanna was replaced with the robot, but she was the ONLY character whose eyes the camera focused on in the end. We know the husbands wanted "perfect" wives. Wrinkles around the eyes are not considered "perfect" to your average chauvanistic man looking for a flawless wife. So that left me thinking it was the real Joanna pretending to be one of the "Stepford Wives," for the sake of getting her children back. I know it's been nearly 40 years, but they should come out with a part 2 to either this version of the Nicole Kidman version to explain this more.
shareAll of these men wanted their wives. They married them for their beauty and still considered them beautiful. They just didn't like the fact that their wives were trying to gain their independence.
Obviously younger models would attract a lot of notice. So instead they froze the looks of their wives at the time and added some enhancements to the robot replacements.
I agree with Kane-P on this
"Anyway-i think Joanna wrestled with her robot-she got strangled then fainted. Diz thought she was dead and left to gather the men. In the meantime-she awoke and crept upon the robot and whacked it with the fire rod then laid it out in the same place she fell."
And maybe the eyes looks unhappy because her husband has found out that she is still real, but she has to pose as the robot and be just as obedient / slavelike as it would be, or else he will tell on her and she will be killed?
We are all going to die.
I intend to deserve it.
Unfortunately, Joanna is no longer in existence.
The scene with Robo Bobbie made it quite clear that after the change there is nothing human left. Joanna would never get away with pretense.
The reason why Joanna's eyes are so sad is because they modeled the robot's eyes after the scene we see. And we do see that she is terrified and heartbroken. Obviously Walter got off on the fact that Joanna's last moments were filled with heartbreak, pain and terror. And he likes to be reminded of it daily.
I wonder why, for that final shot, Forbes didn't use deep focus. Then again I'm not a filmmaker.
shareThat miserable, sick, son of a bitch. And here I was hoping that since Walter himself didn't kill her, maybe he actually didn't know, thought it really was a wife seminar. Anyway, I disagree that they made the eyes freaking sad because Walter was THAT evil and sadistic; one of the weaknesses in the men's stupid minds was that they wanted the wives to be happy in their slave roles. So, they made Joanna look as perfect as possible, but they could not PERFECT her eyes; she was indeed the hardest to replicate.
shareYet he lives with those sad eyes day in and day out. Did you see the big smile he had on his face in the last few photos?
He was happy that Joanna was replaced and suffered during the process.
What photos? We don't see anything after Joanna sees her replacement and then the supermarket scene.
shareThe film ends with photos of Robo-Joanna being picked up in the family car at the Supermarket parking lot. We see Walter smiling at his robot. Then a shot of Joanna's blank face.
I just realized the photo series is one last tribute to the real Joanna. Tragic.
Oh my gosh...
shareThis was just on tv and the film ended in the supermarket with a blurred closeup of Joanna. No supermarket parking lot, no smiling Walter, just credits after the blurred closeup of Joanna's face in the supermarket. In fact I've never seen a version on tv with the ending of Joanna in the parking lot with her husband in the family car. This ending has been edited out by the stations that I've watched this movie on.
shareI cant believe you did not watch till right to the end of a film, I always get right to the end, and then onto the credits as i know sometimes that they have a little extra piece of the film.
You see a picture of Joanna exiting the supermarket, then another snapshot of her in the car blankly staring out the window, then one of Walter smiling happily to himself, happy with his new perfect robotic wife and the children smiling happy to themselves too. One big happy family:)
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