t's all in a nose—at least, that's the case for charming leading actor Jack Wyatt (Ferrell), who is looking for a leading lady for his new project. Normally he's a big movie star, but Wyatt's career has hit a few bumps, so he's slumming it with a TV remake of Bewitched, and he needs a female co-star. While shopping at a bookstore, he notices that a woman named Isabel (Kidman) has a twinkle of a nose that uncannily resembles that of the late Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha in the 1960s sitcom. What he doesn't know yet is that Isabel is a real witch who's hiding out in the San Fernando Valley and itching for life as a regular gal.
At first, when he approaches her, she's mortified at the idea of acting, saying, "Oh, Bewitched, that's a show I wasn't allowed to watch." Then she's intrigued, and after some coaxing by her mortal friends, she auditions for the role. It's not surprising that she's perfect.
Nigel Bigelow (Caine) is Isabel's father, who's a warlock, and he ends up falling for the actress Iris Smythson (MacLaine), who plays Endora on the TV show revival in the film. The supporting cast of characters all add to the complications, mortal or not. Carole Shelley, in her tiny role as the lovable witch Aunt Clara, meddles with Jack and Isabel as they start dating, while Jack's manager (Jason Schwartzman) keeps urging his client to become more and more of a demanding diva while the show is taping.
The TV show writers, Isabel's best friends, the neighbors and all the closet witches conspire—inadvertently or not—into keeping Darrin and Samantha, or Jack and Isabel, from ever falling under each other's spell.
Sexy witch perfected the twitch
Despite the high-powered names in the cast, this is truly an ensemble film, with no one taking the lead. The magic truly is in the way director Nora Ephron and her sister Delia wrote a credible story that brings Bewitched back to the social consciousness. A flat-out remake would seem dated, silly and boring, but this storyline very cleverly revives the idea of the high-camp TV series and introduces new audiences to it who may never have caught an episode.
Kidman is cute and delightful as the closeted witch (of course, I was one of the few who liked her in The Stepford Wives remake, too). She tries very hard to make herself a kind of dumb-blonde-out-of-water as she lives among the mortals, and she carries the gravitas that Montgomery had in the TV show when she's surrounded by a group of knuckleheads. It's no wonder that the actress' photo sits on her dresser when she takes on the role. When Kidman's friend congratulates her for getting the acting role, the two women bounce up and down, hug each other and scream for joy, but then Kidman catches herself and says she didn't know what she was doing just then, but it was fun.
Most of the funniest lines are references to the TV show, but that doesn't mean you have to be overly familiar with it, and a few critics who've never watched the series seemed to enjoy it even without the nostalgic reference. Ferrell, for example, laments that "no one ever liked Darrin; they changed him and no one knew it," which obviously refers to the fact that the actors were changed in the series, without explanation.
Don't expect too many special effects; this is definitely not that kind of movie. Montgomery wrinkled her nose and disappeared on the TV show; Kidman can't blink out so easily in the film version. Isabel gets around by flying on a broomstick (something never seen in the TV show, except during its cartoon opening), and one time she's so frustrated with mortal laboring that she uses magic to hook her cable wires up to the TV and VCR. Look for odd little moments, like an obsession with Cool Whip when she goes grocery shopping, and the labels of the foods all displaying photos of her father.
One of the funniest scenes is at a dinner table when they're recreating the TV show and Isabel casts an actual spell on Wyatt so he can't say, "I want my dog back." The line comes out in various accents, languages and affectations. It shows the ensemble at their finest. The ad libs must come from Ferrell and a few of the comical cast members, including Heather Burns and Kristin Chenoweth as Isabel's mortal friends, Schwartzman as Wyatt's manager, Stephen Colbert and Jim Turner as the TV show writers and Steve Carell as Uncle Arthur.
And, yes, the annoying next door neighbors, the Kravitzes, do eventually come around.
