Bewitched

This has to be a short post today. I received a request for a partial yesterday from one of my dream agents, so I'm frantically polishing the manuscript so that I can send her the best 50 pages that she's ever read.

In the meantime, I'll just post a short review of the movie Bewitched which I saw last night at a special advanced screening through Entertainment Weekly.



Cute poster huh? Too bad the movie wasn't quite as wonderful as the poster.

I loved Bewitched as a child, it was one of my favorite TV shows. I used to spend hours trying to twitch my nose like Samantha or rubbing it like Tabitha, to no avail. I wanted to be magical and have adventures, and have a wonderful, understanding husband like Darren (personally, I liked Darren number 2 better than Darren number 1. Darren number 1 was a little too goofy for me). So I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. I like Will Ferrell, I even like Nicole Kidman now that she's come out of Tom Cruise's shadow. She was really funny on Oprah.

Unfortunately, I didn't really like the movie. Don't get me wrong, I think the idea they conceived of not doing a straight forward version of Bewitched was an inspired one, but somehow it didn't really work. Nicole Kidman seemed to be channeling Meg Ryan from her When Harry Met Sally days. She spent the movie talking in a really high cute voice the entire movie. However, I did think that she captured the innocence and naivete of the character, who apparently has never lived in the mortal world without using her magic. She just wants to be a normal human being for once. However, we're not given the reason for this desire. What sparks her off?

Will Ferrell's character is a little more problematic. He starts off as a has been actor forced to slum it doing a remake of the Bewitched TV series. He finds Isabel and figures that since she's an unknown with no acting experience, she won't overshadow him. He's egged on by his egomaniac agent (the ultimate cliche), even though Will's character is written as a fan of the original TV series. He acts like a jerk to Isabel, cutting her lines until she's basically mute. Isabel retaliates with the help of her Aunt Clara.

This is where the movie seriously went off the rails for me. Aunt Clara was one of the best characters in the TV series, and having her be a real life character in Isabel's life who acts just like the one in the TV series was just weird. Then there's the addition of Uncle Arthur, played in a really bad Paul Lynde impersonation by Steve Carrell from the Office. Only he's not real, he's a figment of Jack's (WF's character) imagination. Plus (SPOILER ALERT), Shirley Maclaine's character of Iris who stars off as an over-the-top actress, turns out to be a witch, which is never explained in the movie.

Michael Caine is totally wasted as Isabel's father. The secondary characters are generic. David Alan Grier, a fine comic actor, is completely wasted as generic director on the series. The movie just doesn't hang together, although Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman definitely have chemistry, and you believe their relationship.

All in all this movie was a huge disappointment, and I'm glad that I didn't have to pay $10.50 for the experience.

I give it two cherries out of five.