Grab your best slip skirt and fuzzy cardigan, because we are back, witches.
“Practical Magic,” the 1998 film directed by Griffin Dunne starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as Sally and Gillian Owens, sister witches burdened by a generational curse, was, like so many romantic comedies (then and now), a bit of a flop at the box office. The film grossed just shy of $95 million against a budget of somewhere between $60 and $75 million, based on varying reports. And, like so many romantic comedies (more then and less now), it has only grown in esteem and residual fondness in the ensuing years. It was likely only a matter of time that a legacy sequel — or, lega-sequel (sorry, that grossed me out, too) — would grace our screens.
As with many films that make up this mostly unhallowed ground, Susanne Bier’s “Practical Magic 2” doesn’t have a great reason to exist aside from returning stars and now producers Kidman and Bullock wanting to work together again, inhabit beloved characters and tell another story. And the work of Alice Hoffman, on whose novels both the original and sequel are based, offers plenty of material. But why now? And does that matter when everyone is still charming and gorgeous and clearly having a good time?
No, of course it doesn’t.
Nothing really matters in this movie (complimentary). It’s simply a gift to be back in the Owens sisters’ orbit. To be with their beloved aunts, Franny (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest), and Sally’s now-grown daughters Antonia (Maisie Williams) and Kylie (Joey King). To have one more magic-based adventure and lesson about the power of sisterhood and the importance of live, laugh, love.
Kidman’s Gillian is still the romantic, still the one living that Free People-wardrobed life, while Bullock’s Sally remains wounded of heart, shunning the magic that brought both light and dark days to her world, and closing her daughters off to it for the same reasons. Shenanigans ensue (as prescribed by Wiest’s Jet, in a moving scene that sets the plot into motion), which I won’t reveal — not because it’s necessary to the enjoyment of this film to go in unspoiled, but just because you should. Let it wash over you like a warm bath: these beautiful people with their great skin and still-excellent physical comedy; their familial jokes that feel genuinely lived-in; their easy chemistry. It’s hard to be mad or even disappointed in something that shouldn’t exist when it does so with such charisma and wit.
Several men take up space in the lives of these women, some more memorably than others (in particular Lee Pace, never unwelcome), but it’s not really about them. It’s never been about them, and maybe that’s the prevailing legacy of these movies. It actually is about the importance and sacred space of sisterhood, blood and beyond, and of being known and seen for who you are by the people closest to you.
“Practical Magic 2” reminds us that there is nothing wrong, and many things right, with telling a familiar, comforting story. Yes, there is magic. There are spells and potions and at least one near-burning at the stake. But there is also the irrefutable power of connection. That love, in all forms, is essential. And, maybe most importantly, that you can’t fight the ever-healing notion of a midnight margarita.
“Practical Magic 2” is playing in theaters now.
Johanna Lester is a pop culture critic who mainlines movies, TV and the best cookies Rochester has to offer. She’ll also hold that grudge on your behalf. Follow her @theauntjojo.
