Reluctantly, she moves into her flamboyant aunts’ house, where she repeatedly warns them to steer clear of her daughters. Indeed, she marries an honest man, Michael (Mark Feuerstein) and bears two lovely daughters, but, as expected, Michael is killed, leaving Sally a young, frustrated, deeply depressed widow. Trying to distance herself from her foremothers, Sally denies her powers, striving to lead a “normal,” magic-free life.
PRACTICAL MAGIC ICON MOVIE
Through cross-cutting, the movie presents the contradictory lifestyles of the two siblings, who early on had vowed to always love and be loyal to each other. In contrast, Gillian is a reckless, fiery woman who enjoys her sexual power over men. Watching her aunts weave spells for the lonely and lovelorn, the quieter Sally begins to fear that she will never find her soulmate. They also realize that the invocation of witchcraft carries with it a curse - their family’s loved men are all doomed to untimely deaths.įocus then switches to the mature Sally (Bullock) and Gillian(Kidman), who are opposites in every way.
However, they soon learn the meaning of ostracism, as they are treated by the town’s folks as outcasts, if not freaks. Sally and Gillian, who are raised by their aunts after their parents’ deaths, grow up in an eccentric mansion in which there are basically no rules. In voiceover narration, Aunt Frances (Channing) relates how, for more than 200 years, Owens women have been blamed “for everything that went wrong in this town.” Frances and her sister, Aunt Jet (Wiest), are attempting to pass on to their young nieces the Owens’ unique psychic heritage, hoping to give them the power that comes from using practical magic. “Witches and ghosts, spells and sleight-of-hand weave a fanciful atmosphere in Alice Hoffman’s tender comedy about clairvoyance, spells, and family ties.This female-dominated picture, which benefits from a strong, sexy performance by Nicole Kidman and supporting turns from Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, is obviously targeted at femme viewers who may enjoy the “Thelma and Louise”-like bonding and the bumpy, lightly feminist road that the two central sisters undertake in this yarn.Ĭredit sequence, in which a witch is about to be hanged in colonial times, establishes at once that sorcery runs deep in the Owens family.
“…readers will relish this magical tale.” – Publishers Weekly
“ delicious fantasy of witchcraft and love in a world where gardens smell of lemon verbena and happy endings are possible.” – Cosmopolitan Says Hoffman in her introduction to this 25th Anniversary Edition, “ Practical Magic addresses serious questions about the place of women in our society – questions that are as important, or more so, than they were twenty-five years ago … the years have only intensified the importance of telling women’s stories, and doing our best to ensure that women who have been forced to be silent can speak and tell their own truths.” (paperback, 1995) From the novel’s first sentence (“For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town.”) we were hooked.
It’s hard to believe Alice Hoffman wrote this wonderful book more than 25 years ago! We first met the Owens sisters, and their wise aunts, in 1995.
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