Based on the Alice Hoffman novel of the same name, Practical Magic stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as Sally and Gillian Owens, sisters who also happen to be witches. Sally is sweet, sensible, and longs for a normal life. Gillian is lusty and vivacious and uses her witchcraft mostly for the purpose of ensnaring a series of lovers. Sally and Gillian were orphaned and consequently raised by Frances and Jet, their wise, witty, and unconventional aunts.
Unfortunately, due to a curse pronounced by ancestress Maria Owens after her rejection by a faithless lover, any man who loves an Owens woman is destined to die young. For Gillian, the affects of this curse are somewhat mitigated by her wildness and sexual abandon; she never gets close enough to actually fall in love with a man. Sally, though, longs for love and stability.
Frances and Jet secretly cast spells to bring Sally a nice man, and for a time, Sally is happy with her loving husband and two adorable little girls. Sadly, the curse kicks in and Sally is suddenly a young widow. She and her two daughters come home to live with the aunts, though Sally forbids them to teach witchcraft to her children.
Gillian, meanwhile, finds herself in a frightening relationship with an abusive lover (played by the mesmerizing Goran Visnjic), whom she describes as a “vampire cowboy.” Sally rescues Gillian, but in the process they accidentally kill her boyfriend. And all Hell breaks loose (literally) when they try to bring him back to life with a sloppily performed spell.
Sandra Bullock is believable as Sally and I think she does some of her best work in this film. I’m not a huge Nicole Kidman fan, because I frequently catch her acting… but in this film she seems natural, unrehearsed, and imbued with a great sense of fun. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest are delightful as Frances and Jet, performing with grace and glee. Even the often-wooden Aidan Quinn loosens up a little and seems to enjoy his role as the romantic lead. The special effects are good, and what’s more, director Griffin Dunne refrained from over-using technical wizardry.
The plot begins a bit too slowly but once established, the rest of the story moves fairly smoothly through the film. I’d have preferred the “magic” portion of Practical Magic to be a little less New Age mumbo-jumbo and a little more clearly defined and explained, but that’s a flaw that most of the viewing public would never notice.
When first released in theaters, Practical Magic received an amazing amount of bad press and in my opinion quite undeservedly so. A common complaint was critics’ inability to pin down which genre the movie belongs to. Is it a black comedy? A romantic melodrama? A chick-flick? A supernatural thriller? I say, who cares? It encompasses all of these and more. Let’s just call it fantasy and leave it alone. At our house, we don’t categorize our movies by genre so much as by feeling, and Practical Magic is stored on the shelf that we’ve labelled “Life Affirming.” If you believe in the powers of magic, fate, friendship, and love, you should enjoy this movie.
(Warner Brothers, 1998)
