“Practical Magic” (1998) was met with lukewarm reviews and modest box office returns. Its heroines are sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, descendants of a Massachusetts family of witches cursed so that any man who wins the love of an Owens woman will die prematurely.
Sally, the more levelheaded sister, falls in love, becomes a widow and by the end of the film finds love again with detective Gary, who is no longer supposed to be vulnerable to the curse. Gillian, by contrast, is the mischievous sister. True to the fiery red hair that matches her temperament, she changes men constantly. She is careful not to fall in love but still becomes entangled with an abusive man. Through fantasy elements, romantic curses and good-hearted witches, the film gives young female viewers two different ways of thinking about love and emotional attachment.
The screenplay flaws in “Practical Magic” are obvious. The tone changes every few minutes, shifting among comedy, fantasy and romance, mixed with violence against women and elements of horror. What holds those tonal swings together is the chemistry between the sisters, as shaped by Bullock and Kidman.
The men come and go. Some die, while others remain for what comes next. But what matters are the sisters’ wild adventures, the relaxed female household of their two witch aunts, Frances and Jet, played by Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, and the nights spent drinking midnight margaritas. By the end, the film even creates a sense of communal sisterhood when the women of the town, who had previously feared the sisters’ powers, help them overcome an embodiment of toxic masculinity.
What faltered in theaters became a success on home video. Millennial teenage girls who watched “Practical Magic” with their friends connected with its vibe. Once, then again, then again, until the film gradually acquired cult status.
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How are the grandkids, sweetheart? From 'Practical Magic 2'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
Twenty-eight years later, the time has come to cash in on that nostalgia with “Practical Magic 2.” If the first film was hardly a masterpiece, that is even more true of the sequel. Viewers who remember the original fondly may enjoy the follow-up, but largely because of nostalgia’s dark magic. Those who have never seen the first film would be better off starting there, then deciding whether there is any reason to watch a weaker movie trying to recreate the particular charm of the original.
We return to the characters 25 years later. If the ending of the first film suggested that the curse had been broken, “Practical Magic 2” quickly makes clear that this was a mistake. The curse got to Gary, leaving Sally widowed and back where she started. Now a new generation has to learn the same lesson.
It is a convenient but lazy screenwriting solution. Instead of asking how these characters have lived with the consequences of their actions, the film resets them so it can tell the same story again. Bullock returns to the same awkwardness around magic that defined Sally in the previous film, though early on the movie assures viewers that she will undergo a significant transformation.
Kidman has not forgotten how to draw out of Gillian the same mix of provocation and comic energy that made her the “crazy sister.” It is clear that the filmmakers — Bullock and Kidman, director Susanne Bier and screenwriters Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel — understand that indulging in the relationship between the sisters, even when it does nothing to advance the plot, is exactly what audiences want.
The plot gives Gillian no dramatic arc of her own. She mostly reacts to Sally, teases her, makes her laugh and tries to shake her out of her emotional paralysis. In other words, she too is still stuck in 1998.
Who needs a dramatic arc? From 'Practical Magic 2'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
The family curse now affects the next generation. Sally has stopped using magic and conceals from her two daughters both their place in a lineage of witches and, of course, the existence of the curse on Owens women. That is fairly implausible considering that they live in a house with a wild aunt who still plays around with magic, two elderly aunts who are also witches and an entire town that knows they belong to a family of witches. What the girls themselves witnessed as children in the previous film should also have removed any doubt. But this forced ignorance is what sets the new complications and the rest of the plot in motion.
Echoing Sally and Gillian, one of Sally’s daughters is the “good girl” and the other is “wild.” The first has dark hair, the second red. Antonia, played by Maisie Williams, is a medical resident and becomes embarrassingly marginal as the film goes on. Her sister Kylie, played by Joey King, is the more impulsive of the two when it comes to emotion.
Soon after Kylie confesses her love for her boyfriend Gideon, played by Xolo Maridueña, he is involved in an accident reminiscent of what happened to Sally’s love interest in the first film. But Gideon does not die. He falls into a coma, and Kylie sets off for England in search of her family roots, carrying a book of spells and hoping to prevent her boyfriend’s death.
Sally and Gillian follow in an effort to protect her, and along the way they meet Ian Wright, played by Lee Pace, a professor of the history of witchcraft who may become a love interest for Sally.
Sorry, aren’t you Emperor Cleon from 'Foundation'? From 'Practical Magic 2'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
The comparison with contemporary nostalgia-driven sequels such as “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is inevitable. Here too, the filmmakers are returning to a movie that became more culturally significant over the years than it was when first released, and in both cases the obvious goal is to reconnect with an audience that grew older alongside the characters and actors.
But “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” even when viewed as a nostalgia product, can at least pretend that its characters live in a world that has changed. “Practical Magic 2” avoids even that effort. It arrives nearly 30 years after the first film but behaves as though the passage of time is mainly an inconvenience to work around. Sally is still afraid of magic and love, and Gillian is still the wild sister trying to shake her out of it. Rather than allowing the years to reshape the characters, the movie asks its stars to climb back into their old molds.
That attempt is particularly jarring because the actresses themselves are no longer the same performers and, with all due respect, have aged nearly 30 years, even if cosmetic procedures seem equally unwilling to acknowledge the passage of time.
Bullock, now 62, has moved since 1998 through romantic comedies and action hits to dramatic roles that brought her both an Oscar nomination for “Gravity” and a win for “The Blind Side.” Kidman, 59, has followed an even more varied path, from “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Moulin Rouge!” to an Oscar-winning performance in “The Hours.” She has become associated with both art-house cinema and prestige television drama.
Both arrive at “Practical Magic 2” after careers that have shown just how capable they are of playing complex and very different women. It is also worth noting that they are not only the film’s stars but its producers, giving them full responsibility for its lack of daring.
Neither magic nor practical; from 'Practical Magic 2'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
The first “Practical Magic” was never a particularly successful film. It was made in an era when it could be a little strange, a little silly, a little dark and a little romantic without constantly having to explain why.
“Practical Magic 2” is a product that is far too aware of itself. It knows it has an audience. It knows which moments that audience remembers fondly. It knows viewers want to see Bullock and Kidman fooling around together with the same dynamic they had three decades ago.
But in knowing all that, it forgot the simplest thing of all: to make a film with a life of its own.