Tweet

Comments (0)

 1 of 3

Bewitched Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some language, including sex and drug references, and partial nudity) Theater release: June 24, 2005 by Columbia Pictures Directed by: Nora Ephron Runtime: 1 hour 38 minutes Cast: Nicole Kidman (Isabel Bigelow/Samantha), Will Ferrell (Jack Wyatt/Darrin), Shirley MacLaine (Iris Smythson/Endora), Michael Caine (Nigel Bigelow), Kristin Chenoweth (Maria Kelly) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Buy this poster

It goes without saying that Bewitched owes a lot to the 1960s sitcom that inspired it. Fans of the show can rest easy—Nicole Kidman proves perfectly capable of the magical nose-twitching that made Elizabeth Montgomery everyone's favorite televised witch.

In recent years, we've seen far too many episodic television shows pumped up to forgettable, feature-length versions. Writer/director Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail) deserves kudos for her smart game plan. She might have re-contextualized characters like Samantha the witch, her bumbling husband Darrin, and her imperious mother Endora, in contemporary surroundings (The Honeymooners). Or, she could have "spiced up" the old mix with today's too-dirty-for-prime-time humor (Starsky and Hutch). Instead, she conjures a premise that captures the spirit of the original while developing a new and engaging scenario.

Thus, Bewitched is just as likely to remind viewers of other popular big screen comedies, and it borrows ideas from several. Like the hero of Groundhog Day, Isabel the witch (Kidman) has the capability of reliving situations and correcting her mistakes. And, taking a note from Bruce Almighty, Isabel manipulates her circumstances with godlike powers—even scrambling the speech of her love interest, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) when he doesn't cooperate—until she learns that that human limitations might be a good thing after all.

Nicole Kidman shows her comedic acting stripes as the witchy Isabel

But there's another film that Bewitched resembles in surprising ways: Wim Wenders's Cannes-award-winning masterpiece Wings of Desire. Like that film's central character, an angel named Damiel, Isabel walks amongst troubled human beings, mystified by their limitations, trying to imagine how it would feel to be one of them. One question in particular becomes an obsession: What would it be like to fall in love?

Isabel, a magical flibbertigibbet, is seeking romance in the kingdom of artificiality—Beverly Hills. She's determined to win love honestly, unlike her philandering father Nigel (Michael Caine), a suave spellcaster who deceives women with enchantments and trickery. Nigel thinks Isabel isa-bonkers; after all, he seems satisfied with his self-gratifying love affairs. (Caine, who played the original Alfie, is once again perfectly cast as an insufferable seducer who learns lessons the hard way.) But Isabel wants to be done with potions and power plays. She wants human experience and all of its complications. She wants to be loved for who she is, to be needed instead of merely desired. In the aisles of Bed, Bath, and Beyond, she watches a husband and wife argue about home improvements, and enviously declares, "I want to argue about paint!"

Eventually, like Wenders's curious angel, Isabel takes the plunge, and awkwardly attempts to pass herself off as a typical human being. Soon, she's hanging out on movie sets, just as Damiel did, and falling for a show business personality whose career needs a jump-start, just as Damiel did.

That show business personality is Jack Wyatt (Ferrell). Jack's been trying to salvage his unstable career, hoping to avoid becoming "the lower right square on Hollywood Squares." Cast as Darrin in a new Bewitched television series, he's seeking a new Samantha—someone who'll ensure that the spotlight remains fixed on Darrin. Thrilled by his discovery of Isabel, Jack brings her to the set, where she charms the discouraged filmmakers. (Yes, we're served another example of that tired cliché—the montage of bad auditions—and it's surprisingly unfunny.)

Isabel just wants to experience real love, like a mortal—and Jack (Will Ferrell) is her man

Even though Nigel objects, saying that Bewitched is "an insult to our way of life," Isabel's willing to play along, hoping it'll earn her a chance at true love. She's a natural at playing a witch—go figure—and that makes it difficult to repress her control-freak tendencies. Like a smoker trying to quit, Isabel repeatedly declares, "That was my last thing as a witch!" Before long, Jack's storming about in a supernaturally amorous frenzy, not unlike the recent, reckless, lovestruck exhibitions of Tom Cruise. Meanwhile, Nigel becomes distracted by Iris (Shirley McLaine in feather boas, vamping up a storm), the silver screen diva playing Samantha's mother Endora.

next page... |  1 of 3 | last page