Nicole Kidman
Will Ferrell
Shirley MacLaine
Michael Caine
directed by
Nora Ephron
Only in the movie business can something like this happen: someone comes up with a slightly interesting concept, develops it into a screenplay that even a five-year old would find beneath him, gets anywhere from $50 to $100 million to produce it but not have to face the wrath of the studio when the finished product turns out to be, in my opinion, a colossal piece of crap, that should be doomed to go down in financial flames at the box office faster than Paris Hilton descends in the presence of a video camera.
The latest evidence of the benevolence of Hollywood accountants is Bewitched, a big screen update of the television show from the 1960s that starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, a witch married to a mortal and attempting to live in suburbia without resorting to magic. It is adapted by Delia and Nora Ephron, the latter also directs.
Egotistical has-been movie actor Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) is offered the role of Darrin in a modern-day TV update of the original series. Eager to avoid following the previous Darrin incarnations down the road to celebrity obscurity, he demands that an unknown be picked to play Samantha.
Enter Isabelle (Nicole Kidman), a beautiful and rather naive woman who just happens to be a real-life witch. Just like her television doppelganger, Isabelle is trying to give up using her powers and settle into a quiet, mortal life. But in order to survive in Hollywood around people like Jack, magic is not only required, it is mandatory.
Even by Ephron's standard, a talent that has brought such cinematic nadirs as Michael, Lucky Numbers and Hanging Up, Bewitched is bad. There are no characters to speak of, only cliches. Subplots and supporting characters are introduced and abandoned without much sense, and the jokes are about as amusing as picking lint from your belly button.
I enjoyed Ephron's screenplays for both Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally and her two Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan flicks, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. That trio aside, her writing and directing output has headed south since. Ms Ephron's friends in the film industry must be legion, but has she called any of them for pointers on things like how to make a premise work, get good performances out of a cast or make a romantic comedy without drowning it in sentimentality or a manipulative, middle of the road soundtrack?
Kidman has made some very good films (The Hours, Moulin Rouge, Dogville) and some not so good (Practical Magic and The Peacemaker). But Bewitched is a career nadir even compared to The Stepford Wives. Kidman and Ephron appear to confuse being innocent with being educationally subnormal, and make Isabelle's irritating ditz of a witch a good argument for the Inquisition. After this and last year's The Stepford Wives, I have three words of advice Ms Kidman: take a holiday.
Kidman is not alone in looking foolish. Ferrell is lifeless as Jack, Shirley MacLaine (playing a co-star on the show who is also a witch) and Michael Caine (as Isabelle's warlock father) look embarrassed, Kristin Chenoweth is beyond irritating as the next-door neighbor, while Jason Schwartzman flushes away the last vetiges of his Rushmore credibility as Jack's pushy agent.
How bad is this film? It is bad enough to have a really good shot at winning the Rassie for Worst Movie of 2005. Be Warned: Bewitched? Benighted and be gone.
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