| Practical Magic | |
| Director: | Griffin Dunne |
| Producer: | Denise Di Novi |
| Music: | Alan Silvestri |
| Cinematography: | Andrew Dunn |
| Editing: | Elizabeth Kling |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. |
| Runtime: | 104 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $75 million[1] |
| Gross: | $68.3 million |
Practical Magic is a 1998 American romantic fantasy film based on the 1995 novel Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. The film was directed by Griffin Dunne and stars Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing, Aidan Quinn, and Goran Višnjić.
Bullock and Kidman play sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, descended from a long line of witches. Raised by their aunts after their parents' death from a family curse, the sisters were taught the uses of practical magic as they grew up. As adults, Sally and Gillian must use their magic to destroy the evil spirit of Gillian's abusive boyfriend before it kills them.
The film was released on October 16, 1998. Upon initial release, the film received mixed reviews from critics and the film grossed $68.3 million worldwide against a $75 million budget, but has since gained a cult following. A sequel is in development. [2] [3]
In a small Massachusetts town, the Owens family have been regarded with suspicion for over three centuries due to their ancestor Maria Owens, who survived an attempted execution for witchcraft. Heartbroken when the father of her unborn child never returned to her, Maria cast a spell to prevent herself from ever falling in love again. The spell developed into a curse upon Maria's descendants, dooming any man an Owens woman loves.
In the present, Sally and Gillian Owens are taken in by their aunts Frances and Jet after both their parents succumb to the Owens curse. As children, Sally and Gillian are frequently ridiculed by the town's schoolchildren.
After witnessing their aunts cast a love spell for a woman obsessed with her beloved, Sally casts a spell on herself to ensure she will only fall in love with a man who possesses certain impossible traits, with the goal that she will never fall in love.
Meanwhile Gillian, witnessing the same incident, cannot wait to fall in love. When the girls are teens, Gillian elopes with her boyfriend and leaves for Los Angeles. Before she departs, she and Sally make a blood spell to always be faithful to one another.
Gillian spends the next decade moving from relationship to relationship across the country, while back in Massachusetts, Sally meets and marries a man named Michael. They have two daughters, Kylie and Antonia.
After Michael is fatally hit by a truck, Sally and her girls go to live with the aunts. Learning that they secretly cast a love spell on her so that she could marry and be happy, Sally says the aunts will never teach her daughters magic.
Gillian unexpectedly tells Sally she has become involved with a dangerously abusive man named Jimmy Angelov. When Sally arrives to rescue her sister, he holds them both hostage in his car. Sally puts belladonna into Jimmy's tequila to sedate him, but inadvertently kills him instead.
The sisters take Jimmy's body back to the aunts' house, where they attempt to resurrect him using a forbidden spell, which causes him to return and attack Gillian. Sally kills him again, and the sisters bury his remains in the garden.
Sally, Gillian and the aunts have a midnight drinking session in which Jimmy's tequila seems to be influencing them to turn against each other; the aunts leave home the following morning, leaving a message to the sisters to "clean up their own mess".
State investigator Gary Hallett arrives from Tucson, Arizona in search of Jimmy, who is also a serial killer. Gillian tries to make him drink a potion that will make him leave them alone, but Sally's daughters realize he is the man of Sally's childhood spell and they throw the potion away.
After Gillian and Sally fight, Sally breaks down and confesses to Gary, only to realize he is the impossible man from her childhood love spell. Unable to deny their attraction, they kiss.
Returning home, Sally discovers Jimmy's spirit has possessed Gillian's body. Gary sees the spirit emerge. Jimmy tries possessing Gary, but is turned aside by his silver badge. Sally tells Gary he is there because of her spell, the feelings they have for each other are not real, and the family curse will kill him if they pursue a relationship. Gary replies that curses only work if one believes in them, before returning to Tucson.
Jimmy possesses Gillian again and tries killing Sally before Frances and Jet return. Realizing she must embrace magic to save her sister, Sally asks the aid of the townswomen and they form a coven to exorcise Jimmy's spirit. They break the Owens curse, exorcising Jimmy's spirit and allowing the coven to exile him permanently.
In Tucson, Gary clears the sisters of any suspicion in Jimmy's case and returns to Massachusetts to be with Sally. The Owens women are finally welcomed into the community by the townsfolk, who now accept them as witches.
Practical Magic was filmed in part on an artificial set in California. Because the film's producers decided the house was a big part of the depiction of the Owens culture, a house to accurately represent that vision was built on San Juan Island in the state of Washington.[4] While much of the set from California was brought to that location and placed inside the house, it took nearly a year to perfect the image of the house and the interior.[5] The house, actually only a shell with nothing inside, was built only for this filming and was torn down after filming was completed. The small town scenes were filmed in downtown Coupeville, Washington, a Victorian-era seaside port town located on the south side of Penn Cove on Whidbey Island.[6]
According to Sandra Bullock in the DVD commentary, while filming the scene where the Owens women are drunk and slinging insults, the actresses actually got drunk on very bad tequila brought by Kidman. The cast further stated in the film's commentary that they felt supernatural elements of the house started to affect them. Both the cast and crew claimed they heard supernatural noises while filming the coven scene at the end of the film. For the final scene with all of the townspeople at the Owens home, the entire population of the town where filming took place was invited to show up in costume and appear as townsfolk.[7]
| Practical Magic | |
| Type: | soundtrack |
| Artist: | Various artists |
| Cover: | Practicalmagicalbum.jpg |
| Caption: | Photo by Suzanne Tenner |
| Released: | October 6, 1998 (original pressing) |
| Recorded: | August 15–16, 1998, Abbey Road Studios (Michael Nyman tracks) |
| Genre: | Soundtrack, pop, minimalism, orchestral |
| Length: | 56:58 (Nyman pressing); 51:46 (Silvestri pressing) |
| Language: | English |
| Label: | Reprise/WEA |
| Producer: | Danny Bramson, Sandra Bullock |
| Chronology: | Michael Nyman |
| Prev Title: | Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks |
| Prev Year: | 1998 |
| Next Title: | Ravenous |
| Next Year: | 1999 |
Composer Michael Nyman's score to the movie was abruptly replaced with music by Alan Silvestri for the theatrical release. This last-minute change resulted in the release of two soundtracks, although as primarily a compilation album only the two tracks of newly created material were changed. A 50-track demo (the last two tracks being "Convening the Coven" and "Maria Owens") of Nyman's score has been circulating among fans as a bootleg. The complete Nyman score runs 62:30 and contains music that would later appear, in altered form, in Ravenous and The Actors, as well as a bit of his stepwise chord progression theme from Out of the Ruins/String Quartet No. 3/Carrington/The End of the Affair/The Claim. "Convening the Coven", though not "Maria Owens," was subsequently reissued on , and music that uses material related to this piece has not been used elsewhere. "Convening the Coven" became "City of Turin" on The Glare.
Singer Stevie Nicks headlined the soundtrack's published advertisements, promoting her song "If You Ever Did Believe" and a new recording of her song "Crystal," both featuring Sheryl Crow on back-up vocals.
Practical Magic opened at #1 with $13.1 million in ticket sales.[8] The film went on to gross $68.3 million worldwide, less than its $75 million production budget.[9]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 24%, with an average score of 4.8/10, based on 98 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Practical Magics jarring tonal shifts sink what little potential its offbeat story may have -- though Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock's chemistry makes a strong argument for future collaborations."[10] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average, gives a score of 46 out of 100 reviews based on reviews from 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[11] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of 'B-' on an A+ to F scale.[12]
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave Practical Magic a negative review, calling it "a witch comedy so slapdash, plodding, and muddled it seems to have had a hex put on it."[13] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said that the film "doesn't seem sure what tone to adopt, veering uncertainly from horror to laughs to romance."[14]
| Year | Nominated work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Dianne Wiest | American Comedy Awards | |
| Blockbuster Entertainment Awards | |||
| Favorite Song from a Movie Faith Hill For the song "This Kiss". | |||
| Favorite Supporting Actress – Comedy/Romance Dianne Wiest | |||
| Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actress Camilla Belle | Young Artist Awards | ||
| Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actress Evan Rachel Wood |
In June 2024, it was announced that a sequel was in development. Bullock and Kidman will return to produce the film with Di Novi and also being in talks to star in it.[15] Later that same month, Nicole Kidman confirmed that she and Sandra Bullock would reprise their roles in the sequel.[16] Akiva Goldsman, who co-wrote the screenplay for the original 1998 romantic fantasy film, would return to write the script.[17] [18]
In July 2024, Akiva Goldsman later confirmed that he would be returning to write the sequel.[19] While specific plot details remain under wraps, the sequel will be based on Alice Hoffman’s 2021 novel The Book of Magic, the fourth installment in her Practical Magic series.[20] [21] Although the timeline is still uncertain, in August 2024, producer Denise Di Novi is optimistic about beginning production next year.[22]
In 2004, Warner Bros. and CBS produced Sudbury, a television pilot written by Becky Hartman Edwards and directed by Bryan Spicer starring Kim Delaney in the role played by Bullock in the film and Jeri Ryan in the role played by Kidman. The series, named for the Sudbury, Massachusetts location of the novel and film, was not picked up.
In 2010, Warner Bros. and ABC Family attempted to develop a prequel television series.[23]