Practical Magic review – Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock’s 90s witchy fantasy still enchants
Preceding a long-awaited sequel, Griffin Dunne’s supernatural suburban romance gets a big-screen rerelease. With its romcom quirk, buttery cinematography and stabs of black comedy, it
Preceding a long-awaited sequel, Griffin Dunne’s supernatural suburban romance gets a big-screen rerelease. With its romcom quirk, buttery cinematography and stabs of black comedy, it remains a zany gem With a sequel shortly to make an appearance – Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest (but not Evan Rachel Wood) all reprising their roles – the original Practical Magic from 1998 is now getting a rerelease.
This is Griffin Dunne’s smalltown supernatural goof-fest, adapted from a bestseller by Alice Hoffman; the sequel is based on her own follow-up, The Book of Magic. A zanier adventure in occult romance can hardly be imagined, and the elements of grown up noir violence only make it weirder – it is as if The Witches of Eastwick took on something of Thelma & Louise with a decaffeinated David Lynch.
Meanwhile, cinematographer Andrew Dunn bathes the daytime scenes in a golden, buttery light. In a suburban American anytown, buttoned-up residents and frowning soccer moms are disapprovingly obsessed with the fact that the local Owens family womenfolk are witches. There is an amusing “prelude” scene showing a Salem-style public hanging of one of their ancestors; a stark stab of black comedy.
In the present day, the Owens sisters Sally and Gillian, played by Bullock and Kidman, are intensely aware of their magical inheritance, as personified by naughty maiden aunts Frances and Bridget, played by Channing and Wiest. Continue reading...
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