'Tis the season of remakes. For purists, it's a sign the sky is falling, but some of these are pretty good. Unfortunately, Bewitched isn't one of them.
In fact, Bewitched is the worst remake I have ever seen - and I've seen so many I've lost count. Writer-director, Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle) hauls in her sister, Delia (You've Got Mail) - plus Will Farrell's new pet writer, Adam McKay (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy). Unfortunately, this veritable Three's Company of scribes has assembled a script that must, to them, have seemed like the height of wit. To me, it looked like they just weren't trying.
Imagine writing a remake of the classic 1964 TV show as - here it is - the tale of a TV show remaking the classic 1964 TV show.
I've read Charlie Kaufman's work. Charlie Kaufman is a favorite screenwriter of mine. Ms. Ephron: you, your sister and Anchor-boy - the three of you put together - are no Charlie Kaufman.
Yes, I know. Part of the charm of Hamlet was its play within a play. But that was 400 years ago! We've seen it, madam. Many, many, MANY times! Enough, already! Time to come up with material of your own!
Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) is a witch. Unlike the character of Samantha on the 1964 TV show, she is not the brightest bulb on the tree. As played by Elizabeth Montgomery, Samantha was beautiful but smart - smarter, even, than her dorky husband, Darrin (Dick York) - the slick, inventive ad exec who gave her the suburban dream but at a price. On the TV show, conflicts arise because Samantha can't suppress who she is - which mirrored the yearnings of many suburban women who felt trapped in a gilded cage. The original show thinly disguised its women's lib in slapstick.
Here, the elements are flipped - enough to distance the remake from its source - but in a way that sends the cause back a hundred years. Isabel is a dumb blonde, dumber than Marilyn Monroe, dumber than Cyndi Lauper, possibly dumber than Gwen Stefani. She argues with her father, Nigel Bigelow (Michael Caine) about taking up a "normal life" - one without magic. He doesn't think she can do it. For reasons that never quite add up, she wants to "slum it" like the rest of us - and enjoy the thrills of waiting in line and hearing "no" all the time. It's like the Book of Job - but with God cut out and his lines given to Job - who wants to leave the good life and rent a house "in the valley."
In the meantime, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) is looking for a comeback. His last three films have flopped and his wife has run off with a ski instructor. His people talk him into playing Darren on a TV remake of Bewitched. Ferrell, who has made a career of playing sweet but silly losers, looks a little lost as Jack - a character who garners nothing but ill will. One wonders what this character was like before it was adjusted for Ferrell. His introductory scenes paint him as a hateful narcissist ready for a comeuppance. Later on, the attempt to Farrellize him makes him more lovable but inconsistent. One can forgive the casting of Will Ferrell in a part that Jim Carrey was born to play. But if Ferrell was going to do it, the script should have done more than add some silliness. It should have "reenvisioned" the character - from top to bottom. Instead, the script has the feel of a sloppy forgery, with inconsistencies and irregularities that betray an attempt to wedge a square peg into a round hole.
Eager not to be upstaged by the new "Samantha," Jack wants her played by a nobody. After a meet-cute, he goes out of his way to get Isabel, who responds to lines like "I need you" - not to mention the chance to get a job. But as soon as she hired, Jack has his people cut her lines to keep her from becoming the star.
With pure predictability, things go south once Isabel realizes she's being screwed. Magic, she learns, is an irresistible weapon in the battle of the sexes. It's a kind of equalizer when men hold all the cards. What we end up with is a cross between Bruce Almighty and Anchorman. Isabel has the power to get anything she wants. She uses it to put Jack in his place.
It's mostly predictable pap, an $80 million vanity project that spends half its running time making sure the audience gets the joke - by going over the original TV show it strives to "reenvision." That, of course, raises an interesting question. If nobody remembers the original show, whose original premise no longer works, what's the point of a remake?
Much of its eighty mil is spent on elaborate sets, celebrity cameos (including Shirley Maclaine as the new Endora, and Steve Carell as the new Uncle Arthur) and special effects that cost far more than they're worth. My pet peeve was the millions - yes, millions - spent on "found music" - pop songs designed to tap into the nostalgia of aging boomers. Talk about casting spells. Talk about Pavlov's dog. I'm not sure what R.E.M.'s "Everybody Cries" has to do with anything but if I never again hear the climax of The Who's "Don't Get Fooled Again" abused for a plot point - it'll be too soon. Every time the Ephrons cranked up the sound track as a substitute for craft, I wanted to throw something at the screen. I haven't heard this many thirty-second samples since my last trip to Amazon.com.
As a comedy about men and women, this one had little to say. Without the cue cards of soft focus and violins, the audience would have little idea what to feel. Take, for example, Isabel's desire to "be normal." What drives such a feeling? What happened to her? How would having everything make you want nothing? We'll never know, because the film doesn't tell us. It doesn't want us to think about it. It just wants us to "feel" what she feels, by hitting the right combination of lights and strings. Every character acts pretty much the same way. Welcome to Stepford TV. For the Ephrons, equality comes in treating everyone like a Cupie Doll.
There's a scene in this film, where Jack is surrounded by suck-ups, laughing and slapping their knees over everything he says. It's as it they're humoring a drunken Elvis nursing a .357 magnum. It's perhaps the film's most honest moment. That's because, in this "story within a story," the Ephron sisters are finally "writing what you know." What they know is a Hollywood bubble that launched them to great heights in the late eighties and early nineties - where they were gloried as "writers who know women." Those days are over, and they're a lot like Jack, surrounded by suck-ups, hoping to pull out of the nose dive.
They remind me of James L. Brooks - who "made it" with Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, but now only trickles out schlock like Spanglish. Talk about an Enzyte ad with brass brads. The times have changed, but these folks been so busy celebrating success that they've got nothing to offer but memoirs and autographs. When Harry Met Sally is classic stuff, as is Sleepless in Seattle. I even sat through You've Got Mail. But this is just wretched stuff. The sisters are writing outside their wheelhouse - and the inclusion of Will Ferrell's pet writer is not saving the Titanic. It's like trying to save Social Security with "the lockbox" AND private accounts. McKay's style doesn't fit theirs. This kind of cross-pollination has created a frankenfilm.
But you'd never know it from the mutual admiration society. Even now, the sisters are patting themselves on the back for a job well done, reassured by gladhandlers who are there for moral support and a sugar teat of their own at the eighty-million-dollar sow. If money could buy happiness, the Ephron Sisters are not much different from Isabel, who wants to "make it on her own" but isn't above a twitch or two when the going gets tough.
I must confess, I hate the borrowed royalty of an eight-dollar shoe that becomes a glass slipper because somebody's Fairy Godmother has waved the eighty-million-dollar wand. With a tenth of this film's budget, real talent could have produced several comedies that make you laugh, dramas that make you cry or suspense thrillers that make you lean forward in your seat. One wonders what the empresses' clothes would look like if they didn't have publicists and powerful friends.
This film should come with a warning, like you find on packs of cigarettes. Tobacco, after all, will only give you cancer - assuming you keep using it. This film, in contrast, takes hours from your life, hours you can't get back - no matter how hard you try.
The writers of Gigli have reason to smile. Their days at the bottom of the pile are over.
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