Kept Woman

Following their New York City apartment being burglarized, they walking in on the burglar in the process and being subsequently further robbed by him, engaged couple Jessica and Evan Crowder buy a house they can barely afford and move to the suburbs on Jessica's want, solely in her not feeling safe in the city anymore. Evan hates everything about their new situation - having to make an arduous commute to the city to a job he does not like solely to pay only part of the hefty mortgage - but grins and bears it in his love for Jess. The strains of their new situation do manifest themselves, such as Evan snapping at Jess, a freelance graphic designer, for chatting online all day with Oscar Garrett, one in her network of amateur detective friends, instead of working on one of her paid contracts or looking for further clients which would go toward supporting that large mortgage. The one bright spot for Evan is their new friendship with their next door neighbor, Simon, who Evan at least finds interesting and nice. Simon, a Men's Studies college lecturer, looks like he could have stepped straight out of the early 1960s, from the way he dresses, to the vintage car he drives, to his seeming beliefs shaped by his parents having taken on the stereotypical mother and father roles around the house when he was growing up. Jess, however, believes that Simon's story doesn't quite add up. The day after arguably the biggest of Jess and Evan's fights about their life since moving, Jess disappears without a trace and without a word. Beyond her leaving being uncharacteristic even in the worst of their times and she having left her cell phone behind, most of the evidence points to Jess probably leaving due to dissatisfaction with their relationship. What Evan does not know is that Simon has kidnapped Jess, he keeping her in a heavily fortified, surveilled and soundproofed dungeon in his basement which is made to look like a house from the era he epitomizes. Simon's goal is to have Jess become the latest of his human Stepford wives, there being another woman, Robin Simmons, already in the basement, she who has been there for years and she not having been the first. Simon has and will kill to protect this his perfect life, and warns Jess that if she kills him, she and Robin will die along with him as there is no way for them to escape. As Evan, Oscar, and Evan and Jess' NYPD constable friend Tyler Haines follow up on the evidence to find out what did happen to Jess, Jess tries to work her way out of the dungeon without getting beaten or killed by Simon. She may find that Robin may be just as big an obstacle, Robin who has been so terrorized over the years truly to become that subservient human Stepford wife. Or is Jess' fate to turn into another Stepford wife like Robin?