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No magic here
Nils van der Linden
Posted Thu, 18 Aug 2005
Once upon a time Nora Ephron was the queen of the romantic comedy. For many years she ruled the kingdom of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl-back movies with films like 'When Harry Met Sally' and 'Sleepless in Seattle'.
But suddenly, a quiet foreigner slunk into the land, with such charms as 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', 'Notting Hill' and 'Love Actually'. And as the usurper, one Richard Curtis, stormed the throne, Queen Nora's crown slipped ('You've Got Mail'), before falling off completely (the abysmal 'Lucky Numbers').
Ashamed, she ran into the woods where she spent five years hiding and plotting to overthrow that dastardly Curtis chap; she wanted her castle back.
But there's one major flaw in Nora's grand scheme: her comeback film sucks.
That's relatively speaking, of course; 'Bewitched' occasionally shows moments of the excellence we've come to expect from Ephron's earlier efforts. But on the whole 'Bewitched' is just your average romcom — and a weak one at that, struggling with a muddled plot, ropey jokes and very little of that characteristically witty dialogue thrown into the cauldron.
The deathblows, though, come courtesy of Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell who, through their bland performances, commit the ultimate romantic comedy sin: the leads don’t share enough spark to ignite a petrol-doused Karoo veld.
Neither lead seems particularly comfortable in their role, though, the Australian actress putting on a voice rivalling Meg Ryan in the saccharine department as she portrays Isabel Bigelow. A naïve, good-natured witch, she's keen to reinvent herself by ditching the magic that allows her to do pretty much anything — including rewinding time like a video tape. Although she just wants to lead a normal life and has no acting skills, Isabel soon ends up in the remake of a sitcom called 'Bewitched' playing — wait for it — a witch pretending to be a normal woman, who falls in love with a normal man.
Of course life imitates 'art' and Isabel soon falls for her co-star, Jack Wyatt (a low-key Ferrell showing that he's much better when playing frenzied, loveable maniacs). But although she sees him as her ideal normal man to begin her ideal normal life, giving up sorcery is like kicking drugs. So out come the spells and later the heartbreak as Ephron struggles to sprinkle her fairy dust over the always predictable proceedings.
The real-life/TV show parallel isn't anywhere as clever (or original) as she seems to think, while the element of Hollywood satire is limp and tame. Not even a generous dose of special effects or that time-rewinding trick can inject enough magic into 'Bewitched'.
Michael Caine comes closest — appearing in the most unlikely places in a supermarket during the film's best sequence — but his role as Isabel's caddish dad, lusting after Shirley MacLaine's actress, is rather minor. Like the latched-on ending, the seniors subplot is almost like an after-thought in this half-baked, and surprisingly badly executed, attempt from Ephron.
She seems to be relying largely on audience nostalgia for the original 1960s 'Bewitched' sitcom but that doesn't exactly help if, like most people outside the USA, you haven't seen it.
And as a standalone piece, this bigscreen re-interpretation plummets like a drunken witch falling off her broomstick — and that leaves Curtis safely on the throne.
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