Polygon Releases First Look at Practical Magic 2

Twenty-eight years ago, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman made one of the most beloved movies of their careers. Practical Magic has become the go-to story for wannabe Wiccans looking for a blend of the whimsical and goth. It feels like a movie made both to be rewatched on Halloween and with your mom and sister at home for the winter holidays.

The love Practical Magic inspired has led to a legacy sequel, out on Sept. 10. Directed by Susanne Bier, Practical Magic 2 continues the story of sisters Sally and Gillian Owens while introducing a new generation of witches: Sally’s daughters, Kylie and Antonia. As the girls grow, they reckon with the curse that has plagued their family for centuries. Any man who falls in love with an Owens woman meets an untimely death. When Kylie, the eldest daughter, discovers dark abilities of her own, she embarks on a quest to understand her powers, with her family seeking help from unlikely allies in hopes of ending the curse once and for all.

As part of Polygon’s Fall Preview, we have an exclusive image to share, showing Kylie looking through some old texts handed to her by the warlock Thomas Lockland.

How did Practical Magic earn a follow-up nearly 30 years after the original? Here is how we got here.

Practical Magic’s hard-won cult status

Directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Griffin Dunne and based on the novel by Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic follows sisters Sally and Gillian, one bookish and one rebellious, living in a small town in Massachusetts with their aunts. The Owens women come from a long line of witches, with the film taking us to their origins in Salem and then to the present, following the sisters’ growth, relationships, and hardships, including the toll of the family curse.

Practical Magic came out in the midst of a witchy decade, with movies and shows like The Craft and Charmed already established in the mainstream. It starred two of the most exciting actresses of their generation, with Sandra Bullock already having box office hits like The Net and Speed, and Nicole Kidman poised as one of the biggest rising international stars. Still, the movie disappointed at the box office and was met with middling critical reviews. It was only once it became available on home video that it found its audience, which embraced many of the elements and quirks that critics disliked.

We thought, ‘This is going to be such an amazing film. People are going to love it,’ said Bullock in a recent interview with Variety. And then it got quiet. It got quiet. They were like, ‘How many women in a film do you need? How many tones do you need? What kind of film is this?’

While marketed as a chick flick, Practical Magic is much more unwieldy than that. Romance plays a key part of the film, but those relationships are supplementary. The true heart of the story lies in the sisters’ bond and their complex connection to their aunts and abilities as witches. While Sally is the more magically gifted of the two, she is the most fearful of her skills and hates how it singles her out in town. Gillian takes the opposite approach, basking in her uniqueness.

Another sticking point for critics was the film’s jumpy tone, pivoting from melodramatic sequences, like the death of Sally’s husband and its aftermath, to surprisingly dark moments between Gillian and her abusive boyfriend Jimmy, to the playful scenes that the movie is most remembered for, like the Midnight Margaritas party. Upon a rewatch, I had forgotten that Sally and Gillian are taken hostage by a terrifying Jimmy, and felt genuinely struck by the film’s heel turn from a bubbly coming-of-age story into something much darker.

The great thing about Practical Magic is that it takes these shifts in stride, leavening them with humor and quirkiness. One of the movie’s most memorable sequences centers on the revival of Jimmy’s corpse, showing Sally and Gillian bickering their way through the spell, using whipped cream to paint a pentagram on his chest.

Despite its unevenness, Practical Magic‘s charm is inescapable. Set in a stunning Victorian-era house located by the sea, the bulk of the film is made up of its characters moving through wooden rooms and creaky grand staircases, cooking breakfast and brewing love spells. The home is a Gothic dream, with the color and the film grain jumping out of the screen.

It is Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, captured at their most timeless, who anchor it. Their chemistry as sisters is still the film’s beating heart, making for an endlessly rewatchable experience. Is Practical Magic a comedy, a drama, or even a horror? It does not matter. You just want to keep coming back.

Practical Magic 2 premieres in theaters on Sept. 10.

Source: Polygon