FEW writer-directors can handle formula romantic comedy fare like Nora Ephron - smash hits like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail shamelessly pushed all the right buttons, but did so with enough charm to ensure the audience surrendered painlessly.
Bewitched, a big screen reworking of the vintage US sitcom, has all the right potions yet is prevented from casting its spell by an overly laboured, hugely self-reverential conceit.
Tired of dating warlocks and determined to find something other than instant self-gratification, sparky witch Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) strikes out on her own, rents a house and goes in search of real love and a job. Her exasperated father, Nigel (Michael Caine) can't believe she'd pass up the chance of eternal, if shallow, happiness in favour of the troublesome trials and tribulations we mere mortals have to contend with.
Isabel's quest for meaning brings her into the scope of hack movie star Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) who, desperate for a hit, agrees to play Darrin in a TV remake of Bewitched.
(See where we're going?)
When Jack meets Isabel, the die is cast... and so is she, as Samantha, on account of her ability to wiggle her button nose just like Elizabeth Montgomery in the original series.
And, wouldya know it?, before long Jack and Samantha have feelings for each other, Samantha resorts to witchcraft and Nigel is hitting on her co-star Iris Smythson (Shirley MacLaine) who plays Samantha's mum, Endora.
The trouble is, the film's high concept is so laboured it just gets in the way as Art (hah!) is found to be imitating Life imitating Art. I think.
There are some good points, but they're swamped by the tediously self-conscious conceit at the heart of the film. Heather Burns as production assistant Nina gets some deliciously twisted lines, but the saccharine coating of the rest of the script (written by Nora Ephron and her sister Delia) takes all the fizz out of them. Caine and MacLaine add some grace and elegance, but they too are overshadowed by Kidman's irritating perkiness and Ferrell's ineffectual mugging.
The characters follow entirely predictable trajectories, the denouement could have been cribbed from countless other such stories and - with the exception of the underused Caine and MacLaine - the leads appear to have phoned in their performances. To cap it all, there's even the exactly-as-expected appearance of original Bewitched stars Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York at the end.
Which couldn't come soon enough.
See it all UCI, Odeon
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