The much-hyped movie version of classic sitcom Bewitched falls victim to an overly tricky rethinking of the way familiar TV shows are transformed into movies. Instead of simply putting the characters through a large-scale variation on their usual paces, director Nora Ephron's Pirandellian conceit involves a behind-the-scenes story about a modern-day TV remake of Bewitched starring a washed-up movie actor and a naive, real-life witch who's trying to kick the magic habit. Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) yearns to experience the frustration, heartache and bad-hair days mortals take for granted, even though her warlock father, Nigel (Michael Caine), warns that life without magic can be rough sledding. Meanwhile, star-on-the-skids Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) has been reduced by the double whammy of a nasty divorce and a string of expensive box-office flops to playing Darrin Stephens, the regular joe who unwittingly marries a headstrong witch named Samatha, in an upcoming TV remake of Bewitched. Boorish moron though Jack is, he knows enough to learn from the fate of Dick York — York's Darrin was so overshadowed by costar Elizabeth Montgomery that fans barely noticed when he was replaced mid-run. Jack spots Isabel twitching her adorable nose in a bookstore and offers her the part of Samantha, which she accepts because she wants to fall in love with a real mess of a man, a fixer-upper boyfriend who needs her desperately. Despite glimpses of genuine affection for the original series, Nora and Delia Ephron's meta-script consistently nails the details and misses the big picture. It's full of oh-so-cool and clever ideas, but it was honey-next-door Montgomery's warm glow that held the original Bewitched together, and Kidman is made of colder stuff. Neither she nor Ferrell can make much of the unfocused and contradictory Isabel and Jack, so they're consistently eclipsed by the supporting cast, which includes Shirley MacLaine as the uberdiva playing Isabel's TV mom, Endora (the role originated by the peerless Agnes Moorhead); Jason Schwartzman as Jack's magnificently venal agent and Kristin Chenoweth as Isabel's hyperactive new best friend. And while the sequence in which Isabel tries to shop while Nigel's scolding face morphs from package logo to package logo — one minute he's the Gorton's fisherman, the next he's the Jolly Green Giant — is inspired, Isabel and Jack's romance should be enchanting, and it's not. Once the multilayered real-vs.-reel high jinks wear out their welcome, the absence of magic is sadly evident. --Maitland McDonagh
