Bewitched Special Edition

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Nora Ephron could have followed any number of fertile avenues thanks to her intriguing post-modern premise for Bewitched. Instead she goes down her well-trod path of mirthless romantic comedy. Failing as a Hollywood satire, an ode to the original source material, and as a romantic comedy, the inert Bewitched leaves an audience stranded with nothing to care about. The five leads, Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, and Kristin Chenoweth all work very hard to wring what few laughs there are to get, but they each seem to be acting in a different movie. The only performer who registers in a lasting way is Steve Carell who shows up in the movie's third act as Uncle Arthur. His performance evokes Paul Lynde without mimicking him outright. Although Uncle Arthur's appearance and his actions are as arbitrary as everything else in the film, Carell brings an energy and an idiosyncratic comic timing to the third act that is missing from all that came before. By the time the always-dependable Amy Sedaris and Richard Kind show up in the final scene as the meta-Kravitzs, one wishes Ephron had simply served up a straight-up remake of the original television show with Carell, Sedaris, and Kind getting much of the best material. More likely, one might wish for that film as long as it were directed and written by anyone but her.