How rare to find a retro-TV remake of something that began further back than the all-important 1970s. The sitcom Bewitched (itself spun off from the 1942 Veronica Lake movie I Married a Witch) is so prehistoric that its original stars are sadly not in a position to be brought back for the traditional tongue-in-cheek cameos.
Nicole Kidman plays Samantha, the nose-wiggling sorceress who tries renouncing her powers and settling down with a mere mortal. The mortal guy she falls in love with is wacky Will Ferrell, who is a washed-up actor trying to revive his career by starring in a remake of ... Bewitched! And guess which unknown beauty he wants cast opposite him? And so the movie wilfully plunges itself into a postmodern wilderness of mirrors.
The two leads work together nicely enough and Nicole always looks great, certainly much more relaxed than in the teeth-grating Stepford Wives revival, though her Martha Stewart-ish costume and decor are comparable. But that big smirking central conceit undermines any genuine love story in Nora Ephron's film. Michael Caine is on cruise-control as her warlock dad, and the same goes for Shirley MacLaine as the Agnes Moorhead mother-in-law. The spell wears off long before the final credits.