As one of many in the ongoing trend of resurrecting old TV shows and turning them into contemporary Hollywood product, Bewitched tries awfully hard to distinguish itself. It succeeds in lots of surprising ways, not least of which is the star power brought by Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. Even if they don’t create the kind of romantic chemistry that would have elevated the already high concept, they act as delightful foils to each other, but more often to themselves. The conceit of this Bewitched is that it’s a self-reflexive look at the entertainment business, with Ferrell playing Jack Wyatt, an actor starring in an updated version of the classic TV show. Out of favor with the Hollywood elite and desperately in need of a hit, he insists on an unknown to play Samantha, as he wants the show to be about him, since if something doesn’t come his way soon, he’s going to be hearing a lot of no’s, despite the yes-men surrounding him. While his agent (Jason Schwartzman in hilarious high Hollywood sleaze mode) gets him the “unknown Samantha” deal, it’s Jack himself who discovers his own leading lady in the delightful figure of Isabel Bigalow (Kidman), who possesses just the right nose wiggle, not to mention other wiggles.
But wouldn’t you know it, Isabel really is a witch, and exactly the kind of “good” witch trying to rely less on her magical powers that Samantha Stevens was back in her “real” world. Instead of a cranky mother like Endora, Isabel has a distinguished father, Nigel (Michael Caine) who lurks around her as a constant reminder that she can’t be who she’s not (a mere mortal), and she certainly can’t be the star of some zany TV show. As the plot thickens and the movie’s reflexivity grows more convoluted, Nigel falls for the non-witch actress who plays Endora (Shirley MacLaine), and Jack and Isabel fall for each other. Here’s where the Ferrell/Kidman gel doesn’t quite become aspic, but her perkiness (I mean, come on, it is Nicole Kidman, for crying out loud) and his goofiness (Ferrell is at his peak of intelligent bumbling) are more than enough to make the entirety of the proceedings a delectable trifle. Director Nora Ephron has fun skewering her own business in the script she co-wrote with her sister Delia, and her eye for quality craft makes everything sparkle as it should. Even if we have yet to see the definitive remake of an old TV show on the big screen, at least Bewitched is well more than run-of-the-mill as so many adaptations have been, and so many will be. –Ted Fry
Watching the early reels of Australia, there’s certainly no doubt who’s in charge: this could only be a film by Baz Luhrmann, that wacky purveyor of all things over-the-top. In this old-fashioned, 165-minute hymn to his native continent, Luhrmann travels back to the late 1930s/early ’40s, for a scenario that would not have been out of place at MGM in that era. Straightlaced Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) journeys Down Under and is put under the protection of–crikey–a rugged cattle driver known only as the Drover (Hugh Jackman). When the two are forced to team up (along with a motley crew of misfits) to take a herd of cattle through the hostile landscape, their way is challenged by the dastardly plans of the local beef baron (Bryan Brown) and his elaborately evil lieutenant (David Wenham). At some point you realize that this film’s main commodity is not cattle, but corn: Luhrmann piles on the melodrama and the old-school climaxes with his usual frantic glee. Employing “When You Wish Upon a Star” and the Japanese air force to make his case is not beyond Luhrmann, and he reaches big here. Those with a taste for un-ironic silliness might just go for this stuff, but even fans of the Baz will have their patience tested by the broad comedy and the absence of discernable chemistry between Kidman and Jackman. Australia does manage to skewer the culture’s prejudices against the Aboriginal people, but in this context such a victory comes across as rather tinny. –Robert Horton
The porcelain beauty of Nicole Kidman provides the perfect face for narcissism in Margot at the Wedding, writer/director Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to his justly praised The Squid and the Whale. When Margot (Kidman) comes to attend the wedding of her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) with her son Claude (Zane Pais, making his film debut), it seems as if a family rift is being mended–but soon Margot and Pauline, despite their best efforts, revert to their most dysfunctional selves. It doesn’t help that Pauline’s fiance (Jack Black) is woefully depressed, Margot’s lover (Ciaran Hinds, Rome) is as narcissistic as she is, and Margot’s estranged husband (John Turturro) can’t recognize how Margot cringes at his every effort at reconciliation. Margot at the Wedding may sound like a festival of neurosis, and it is–but the deft and subtle script, fully-lived-in performances, and empathic direction create moments so vivid you can’t help but be drawn into the characters’ ragged lives. At the movie’s center is a mother-son relationship both loving and poisonous, portrayed with stark clarity. Kidman is the mirror image of Jeff Daniels as the arrogant father in The Squid and the Whale; she pulls her child down with her as she sinks in self-absorption. Pais, with a simple but heartbreaking performance, gives the brittle movie a sympathetic core. –Bret Fetzer
A fantasy epic with more than a passing resemblance to the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia film franchises, The Golden Compass takes place in an alternate universe where each human’s soul is embodied in a companion animal called a daemon. Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), an orphan who’s lived most of her life among the scholars at Oxford, is intrigued when her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), announces his plans to travel north to investigate the source of some mysterious particles called Dust. Lyra has little hope of following her uncle until a mysterious woman named Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman, at her most icily beautiful) asks Lyra to travel north as her personal assistant. All is not as it seems, however, and the disappearance of Lyra’s friend Roger (Ben Walker) sets her on a dizzying adventure. She does have an alethiometer, or golden compass, that can help her see the truth, and a number of companions, including her shape-shifting daemon, Pantalaimion (voiced by Freddie Highmore of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), polar-bear warrior Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen), Texas aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), and witch queen Serafina Pekkala (Craig’s Casino Royale co-star, Eva Green). Even before its release, The Golden Compass was the subject of controversy over its perceived anti-religious themes. While it does involve an oppressive institution called the Magisterium, it’s not overtly religious, particularly to a young viewer. The movie’s PG-13 rating should be taken seriously, however. Suitable for an older audience than Narnia (though younger than The Lord of the Rings), it deals with complex concepts, violence (though largely bloodless) and implied death, children and animals in peril, and an unrelentingly ominous and unsettling mood.
Despite a few changes and rearrangements, the overall plot of the movie is remarkably faithful to its source material, the first installment of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. It doesn’t finish the book, however, and–much like The Fellowship of the Ring did–leaves the viewer hanging in anticipation of the next film, The Subtle Knife, due in 2009. So even though The Golden Compass is impressive–especially with its spot-on cast and terrific visual effects–we probably won’t know its full emotional impact until the story is complete. –David Horiuchi
The Invasion deserves a second chance on DVD. This ambitious sci-fi thriller represents a flawed yet worthy attempt to bring contemporary vitality to Jack Finney’s classic science fiction novel, previously filmed as Don Siegel’s 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Philip Kaufman’s suspenseful 1978 remake, and Abel Ferrara’s highly underrated Body Snatchers from 1994. And while those earlier films are superior in many respects, The Invasion is not without strengths of its own, particularly for those who prefer action and suspense. Unfortunately these strengths were compromised by the unpredictable misfortunes of production: Original director Oliver Hirschbiegel (hired on the strength of Downfall) was eventually replaced by James McTiegue (V for Vendetta), and the Wachowski Brothers (of Matrix trilogy fame) added high-octane action sequences to the original screenplay by David Kajganich. Perhaps the movie had a curse on it (star Nicole Kidman was almost seriously injured in a stunt-car mishap during last-minute reshoots), but it’s really just a matter of disparate ingredients that don’t always fit together, resulting in a slick-looking film that can’t decide if it’s a sci-fi mystery, action thriller, or political allegory. It tries too hard to be all things at once.
Despite this, Kidman rises to the occasion with a solid performance as Carol, a Washington, D.C. psychiatrist who’s convinced (with the help of costars Daniel Craig and Jeffrey Wright) that a flu-like virus is spreading throughout the population, its alien spores turning victims into soulless “pod people”… only in this case without the pods. The idea is that you’ll be fine if you don’t fall asleep, and especially if you don’t let anyone sneeze or vomit on you. (There’s a lot of vomiting; don’t say you weren’t warned.) With a crashing space shuttle to deliver the alien threat, cute tyke Jackson Bond as Carol’s threatened son, and a nod to Kaufman’s film with a small role for Veronica Cartwright, The Invasion will surely fare better on DVD than it did in theaters. If nothing else, it proves the timeless relevance of Finney’s original premise, which continues to inspire a multitude of variations. –Jeff Shannon
God Grew Tired of Us is as much about America as it is about Africa. The moving documentary begins in war-torn Sudan with the mid-1980s exodus of 27,000 Christian boys, most between five and ten. After their arrival in Kenya, the UN steps in with aid. Directors Christopher Quinn and Tommy Walker pick up the story a decade later, narrowing their focus to Panther, John, and Daniel, three of 3,800 given the opportunity to resettle in the US. Quinn and Walker are with them when they land in the States, where everything is new and exciting–electricity, running water, pre-packaged foodstuffs–all the things Americans take for granted. Through the assistance of various relief organizations, their expenses are covered for the next few months. After that, the trio is expected to provide for themselves (they’re older than the subjects in 2003’s The Lost Boys of Sudan). Divided between Pittsburgh, PA and Syracuse, NY, the young men are thrilled with their suburban lives. Over the next year, however, joy turns to sorrow. They miss their families and have trouble making connections beyond their social group. The directors document another two years, by which point things are finally starting to look up. Produced by Brad Pitt, God Grew Tired of Us won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance. Nicole Kidman provides a little narration, but for the most part, the Lost Boys speak for themselves, which is exactly as it should be. –Kathleen C. Fennessy
Modeled loosely on Patricia Bosworth’s 1984 biography, Fur opens with an independent, working Diane Arbus (Nicole Kidman), free of the familial restraints that previously prevented her from making art. Flashing back three months, the viewer comes to learn that she has just left her husband and children to photographically investigate her fetishes through observing the extraordinary. When Lionel (Robert Downey Jr.), a wig-maker who suffers from hypertrichosis, or excessive hair growth, moves into Arbus’s apartment building with his entourage and basement full of carnival props, Arbus is seduced by this opportunity to visually feast on freaks. The split with her conventional family becomes inevitable. Confusing love with her desire to make art, Arbus is overwhelmed when Lionel perishes, though its made clear to the viewer that this event provides Arbus necessary artistic impetus. Early scenes establishing Arbus’s distaste for society parties, such as the fur fashion show her parents host, her boredom during her husband’s dull, ridiculous commercial photo shoots, and her initial fascination with Lionel and his bizarre friends are strange and funny, successfully separating Arbus from the ‘average’ people surrounding her. But as Lionel and Arbus fall in love, pretentious whispering replaces their regular conversations, and overacting spoils Lionel’s death scene, in which they both float dramatically through the ocean, followed by Arbus crying in the surf like a weenie. Arbus desperately huffing air from a life raft Lionel inflated before he died is completely cheesy. The tortured artist myth has, once again, been pushed too far. For a film that has such fine costuming, production design, and cinematography, it’s a shame that Fur succumbs to that Hollywood convention of reducing the entire plot to a tragic love story. For a project with so much potential, and with so many Arbus fans eagerly awaiting this tribute to the great photographer, it’s unfortunate that Fur falls flat, due mostly to injected sentimental melodrama in scenes where it has no place. If Arbus sought to expel saccharine emotionality from portrait photography, then it’s odd that a biopic dedicated to her memory would be so unabashedly corny.–Trinie Dalton
Director Sydney Pollack delivers megawatt star power, high gloss, and political passion to The Interpreter, his first thriller since The Firm. With Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn delivering smooth, understated performances, the film more closely recalls Pollack’s 1975 Robert Redford/Faye Dunaway paranoid thriller Three Days of the Condor, trading conspiratorial politicians for potential assassination in the United Nations General Assembly (this being the first film ever granted permission to use actual U.N. locations). Kidman plays a U.N. interpreter who inadvertently overhears hints of a plot to kill the reviled, tyrannical leader of her (fictional) African homeland; Penn is the Secret Service agent assigned to protect her, or to determine her role (if any) in the assassination scenario. By distancing itself from real-life politics, The Interpreter softens its potential impact as a thriller about contemporary globalization and threats to international peace, but the Penn/Kidman personal drama (between two people who gain a deep appreciation for shared anguish, without being artificially forced into romance) adds a richly human dimension to Pollack’s expert handling of the thriller elements of a complex yet easily-followed plot. Indie-film stalwart Catherine Keener shines in her supporting role as Penn’s sarcastic by sympathetic Secret Service partner. –Jeff Shannon
An all-star cast remakes the 1975 socio-political horror flick, The Stepford Wives. After being fired as president of a television network, Joanna (Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge) has a nervous breakdown, prompting her husband Walter (Matthew Broderick, Election) to take her to a simple Connecticut town called Stepford to recuperate. But Stepford is a little strange: The schlubby husbands congregate at a closed-doors men’s club, while the wives–all in bright summer frocks and air-brushed smiles–exercise to keep their hourglass figures and cook endless pastries. Joanna, along with new arrivals Bobbie (Bette Midler, Beaches) and Roger (the very funny Roger Bart), soon discover that the mastermind of Stepford (Christopher Walken, Communion) has used cybernetics to “perfect” womankind. The Stepford Wives has some satirical zingers (from sneaky screenwriter Paul Rudnick, Addams Family Values), but the basic idea has lost a lot of gas since 1975. Also featuring Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction). –Bret Fetzer
Freely adapted from Charles Frazier’s beloved bestseller, Cold Mountain boasts an impeccable pedigree as a respectable Civil War love story, offering everything you’d want from a romantic epic except a resonant emotional core. Everything in this sweeping, Odyssean journey depends on believing in the instant love that ignites during a very brief encounter between genteel, city-bred preacher’s daughter Ada (Nicole Kidman) and Confederate soldier Inman (Jude Law), who deserts the battlefield to return, weary and wounded, to Ada’s inherited farm in the rural town of Cold Mountain, North Carolina. In an epic (but dramatically tenuous) case of absence making hearts grow fonder, Inman endures a treacherous hike fraught with danger (and populated by supporting players including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and others) while the struggling, inexperienced Ada is aided by the high-spirited Ruby (Renée Zellweger), forming a powerful farming partnership that transforms Ada into a strong, lovelorn survivor. The film’s episodic structure slightly weakens its emotional impact, and it’s fairly obvious that director Anthony Minghella is striving to repeat the prestigious romanticism of his Oscar®-winning hit The English Patient. For the most part it works, especially in the dynamic performances of Zellweger and Kidman, and the explosive 1864 battle of Petersburg, Virginia, is recreated with violent, percussive intensity. Those who admired Frazier’s novel may regret some of the changes made in Minghella’s adaptation (the ending is particularly altered), but Cold Mountain remains a high-class example of grand, old-fashioned filmmaking, boosted by star power of the highest order. –Jeff Shannon
As one of many in the ongoing trend of resurrecting old TV shows and turning them into contemporary Hollywood product, Bewitched tries awfully hard to distinguish itself. It succeeds in lots of surprising ways, not least of which is the star power brought by Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. Even if they don’t create the kind of romantic chemistry that would have elevated the already high concept, they act as delightful foils to each other, but more often to themselves. The conceit of this Bewitched is that it’s a self-reflexive look at the entertainment business, with Ferrell playing Jack Wyatt, an actor starring in an updated version of the classic TV show. Out of favor with the Hollywood elite and desperately in need of a hit, he insists on an unknown to play Samantha, as he wants the show to be about him, since if something doesn’t come his way soon, he’s going to be hearing a lot of no’s, despite the yes-men surrounding him. While his agent (Jason Schwartzman in hilarious high Hollywood sleaze mode) gets him the “unknown Samantha” deal, it’s Jack himself who discovers his own leading lady in the delightful figure of Isabel Bigalow (Kidman), who possesses just the right nose wiggle, not to mention other wiggles.
