Bewitched

2005, US, directed by Nora Ephron

I normally have plenty of time for Jonathan Rosenbaum, the movie critic for The Chicago Reader, though his approach to movies is a whole lot more intellectual than mine. He must have been on crack, though, when writing his review of Bewitched. Rosenbaum opines that director Nora Ephron handles her material "with grace and confidence", whereas I hard a time telling that there was a director involved at all. There's a good idea in here - instead of a straight retread of the show, the plot revolves around the cast of a Bewitched remake - but the resulting script is nowhere near funny enough, the romantic spark between the leads is entirely absent, Will Ferrell is plain annoying, and Nicole Kidman is miscast. The supporting cast does the heavy lifting - Hollywood is blessed with an abundance of acting talent to fill in the gaps - so most of the (minimal) fun to be had comes from Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine and Jason Schwartzman.