CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 6/24/05

Casting Slight Spells

By Jeff goldsmith

When a TV network decides to relaunch the beloved '60s sitcom Bewitched, a whole lotta silliness ensues as a failing actor is cast as Darren and a real witch is accidentally cast as Samantha. Nora and Delia Ephron delivered a snappy little romantic comedy that definitely has its moments -- both good and bad -- and delivers simple summer movie fare for a pre-holiday weekend.

Bewitched

Delia Ephron, Nora Ephron, Adam McKay

Based on the show created by Sol Saks

Meet Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman), a typical LA gal -- or at least she would be if she weren't a witch. From the beginning, Isabel insists to her father, Nigel (Michael Caine), that she's giving up her broom and spell book in order to live a regular life (to be "thwarted" by not using her magic) and hopefully find love in the process. Now meet Jack Wyatt (Will Ferell), a popular actor whose career remains in the dumps until his agent (Jason Schwartzman) gets him cast as Darren in a revamped version of the 1960s TV hit, Bewitched. In an effort to truly re-launch his career, Jack insists that the role of Samantha be cast with an unknown actress whom he secretly plans to upstage. It seems like love at first sight when Jack discovers Isabel at an LA bookstore and is drawn to her uncanny ability to perfectly imitate original Bewitched actress Elizabeth Montgomery's spell-casting "nose twinkle." As the Darren-centric Bewitched begins production, Isabel realizes that Jack is more interested in using her than becoming romantically involved with her, so she gives up on her "no spells" promise in order to teach Jack a lesson in black magic. Comedy ensues, and Jack finds himself falling in love with Isabel, but will this last-minute realization be too late to save their relationship?

Bewitched had been kicking around Sony for years, until Norah Ephron came up with the post-modern twist of a movie about the fictional updating of the TV show with a real witch. Ephron's idea worked well to breathe new life into the tired TV-to-film genre, superceding the more straight-laced TV-to-film adaptations like Leave it to Beaver or McHale's Navy. Nora and her sister Delia's script works decently as a romantic comedy that skews a bit more toward teen gals than young women, but ultimately comes up short for about the first 20 minutes, as the film begs not just to re-launch the franchise within its own world, but invasively into ours too.

The storytelling seems to halt every few minutes as we're repeatedly bombarded with flavors of the original show via clips and references that seem more like commercials for DVD box sets than anything relevant to the story at hand. Isabel and Jack both sit around watching old episodes, we see the original show's animated opening nearly in its entirety, and then, shortly thereafter, see it again as a modernized color version with both Kidman and Ferrell as the cartoon characters. Sure, it quickly explains the set-up of the show, but as all screenwriters know, information repeated twice in nearly the same fashion is a redundancy no-no. Toss in a whole bunch of Bewitched logo merchandising and the self-reflexivity angle suddenly becomes very passé. While it's not torturous to sit through, it seems that every time the story is about to begin, a brief infomercial pops up to slow things down.

Once the story does finally kick into gear, it works pretty well for the genre on strictly comedic terms. The character of Isabel, as the real witch wanting to learn to how live as a regular person, paints such a clueless, fish-out-of-water archetype that she's hard to really identify with sometimes, but otherwise the evolving relationship between her and Jack works overall.

The film gets funnier as Isabel's shenanigans increase and she uses her magical skills to sabotage the production of the TV show, concoct a potion to make Jack fall in love with her, or to finally reveal to Jack that she's truly a witch -- the scene that plays the best in the film.

Nora and Delia Ephron delivered a commercially viable and amusing script and film that ultimately plays simply too light and bubbly to be taken more seriously than the passing amusement that it remains.

Read the full Nora and Delia Ephron interview in the new issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine, on sale the first week of July!

Bewitched
Sony Pictures
Rated PG-13; 98 min.

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Jeff Goldsmith is senior editor for Creative Screenwriting magazine and serves as the Los Angeles Events Coordinator in charge of the Creative Screenwriting screening series.
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