“Practical Magic” (1998) adapts a 1995 Alice Hoffman novel. Men who fall in love with Owen women die because of a curse, which is bad news when Sally (Sandra Bullock) marries Michael (Mark Feuerstein). Sally’s sister, Gillian, Gilly or Jellybean (Nicole Kidman), does not need a curse, just bad taste in men like Jimmy Angelov (Goran Visnjic) for them to end up dead. When Arizona Detective Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn) investigates Jimmy’s disappearance, it appears that he may be the perfect match for Sally. Will he be next? Well, that should be the question, but the actual question is how will Sally, Gillian and their aunts finally make peace with the two-hundred-year family history and their place in the town? This movie is all over the place. At least it was not predictable.
“Practical Magic” is barely cohesive. It is like the personification of a word association game if it became a movie. If the movie had existed at the same time as AI, it would be easy to think that a synthetic consciousness made it with no basis in reality. Witches equal sisters, hot, Massachusetts, bad dental hygiene, bad sleep habits, eating lots of dessert, being irresistible to men, which *checks notes* includes married men while wondering why the wives may resent them for it. What?!? Nothing could have prepared me for a movie about a female family of witches to be so much about their (insubstantial) romantic relationships with hastily sketched men. No couple has chemistry, and if everyone deserves Oscars, it is because they are forced to utter the most ridiculous lines and suddenly have an attraction under the most peculiar circumstances. If this is the sisterhood everyone is talking about, I’m good. Nope.
Sally is the gifted sister, brunette and a nerd because glasses until an unrequested (rapey) love spell makes her hot and open to dating Michael, who gets zero lines until he dies. They are just a montage of happiness, which includes two daughters, Kylie (Evan Rachel Wood) and Antonia (Alexandria ArtripApparently, he was a grocer because he is always carting stuff in the street but with the situational awareness of someone born yesterday. Sally is big on swearing off things and doing the opposite seconds later. Her greatest ambition is to be the head of *checks notes* a phone tree. Land lines! That aged well. The phone tree becomes relevant so at least it has that going for it, so it is not the saddest outtake from “Bewitched.” Bullock is very fresh faced and sly in this role. If had your cake and eat it too was a person, it is Bullock playing Sally, who should be more annoying for wanting to be a normie, but is not.
Meanwhile Gilly, whose power is being a red head and a man magnet, barely spends time with her sister, not even a phone call, until Sally makes a telepathic plea when Michael dies. Kidman’s accent slips in and out on occasion. Gilly is severely underwritten in a film teeming with archetypes and vibes. Poor Kidman has some ridiculous scenes, including playing two different roles though the supernatural reason seems tenuous if not completely flimsy. At one point, Gilly appears to be preparing to murder someone with the kids playing in the background, and the tone of “Practical Magic” makes no sense. She is just on the line of unlikable. Gilly has a gift for reaching out to her sister when her life is falling apart.
Cue Jimmy. I watched ER just to watch Visnjic, who is Croatian, so initially this development seemed auspicious, but no. It was as if “Practical Magic” decided they needed a villain and cobbled together a character with a mythology so scrambled that eggs are jealous. Gilly describes him as a “Dracula cowboy” (what?) from Transylvania around Bulgaria (is this supposed to be a joke about how Americans do not know geography because it is Romania?). His positive qualities are his stamina and how he talks about their relationship in terms of centuries. As a vampire fan, what a letdown to discover that he is just a standard issue physically abusive boyfriend, and the sisters’ reactions are like an instructional manual of what not to do with a bad hombre. It is the most Rube Goldbergian way for Sally to meet the perfect man.
No disrespect intended to Quinn, but Hallet is a bump ona log in terms of characteristics. He may get more lines than Michael, but other than his profession, it would be hard to list his positive qualities other than his ability to flip pancakes and has heterochromia. He gets one cool supernatural scene that is portended earlier, but the whole thing does not amount to more than that. If he randomly played more of a magical role, it could have worked, but alas, no.
What worked but gets short shrift? Staying rooted in the community. Because the town knows that Owen women are witches, they are mean except for Linda (Margo Martindale, “Hereditary”) and Carla (Chloe Webb), who work at Sally’s shop, which has to be a mob front because they do not get enough customers to justify having two employees and such an elemental commercial setup complete with a green and white aesthetic. Why are Linda and Carla cool with them? Would you know their names if IMDb did not exist? If the sisters’ relationships seem secondary to the romantic relationships, friendship only exists in terms of servitude. Other eleventh hour friends are collected from the town haters, and there are some platitudes that all women are witches. Um, PSA: please do not hang out with people who do not like you in the hopes of converting them to your side then giving them powers. This is just a movie. Do not try this at home.
If “Practical Magic” works, it is not only because of Bullock and Kidman’s ability to say and do the most ridiculous things and acting as if it makes sense, but because Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest play the sisters’ aunts who favor period clothing, know who they are and embrace their power. Are they problematic? Yes, especially since they are the ones who cast the love spell. Ew. Hypocrites. When they got a third sister, did they automatically know that she was doomed because it appears that the sisters are supposed to come in pairs, a brunette and a red head?
I saw the trailer for “Practical Magic 2” (2026) and thought it looked cute so decided to finally see “Practical Magic.” Um, I am now reconsidering my decision to watch the sequel because this movie is not for me. Nope. I do not get it. Nothing could have prepared me for that plot, and if the sequel is anything like the original except longer, the experience will be torture. I’m clinging to the hope that because the foundational cast is even better at their (acting) craft and now includes Lee Pace who is (respectfully) hotter than most of the men in this cast, maybe they will learn from their past mistakes and make a hit otherwise I’ll wish that I was never tempted. At this point, my life was better without watching the original movie.
