Practical Magic (1998)

Plot of Practical Magic: Sally and Gillian Owens are young women living with their aunts in Massachusetts after the death of their parents in an accident. The aunts are witches inheriting the capability from an ancestor who also cursed them and as a result any men they love will die. In adulthood Gillian leaves with a boyfriend and Sally remains marrying a man who runs  market stall. They have children, but in the end the curse is effective and Michael, the husband, is run down by a truck.  Meanwhile Gillian is in an abusive relationship with a bad man, Jimmy, and Sally goes and rescues her and accidentally kills him with poison. They bring his body home and, using witchcraft, revive him. But he is still horrible so Sally kills him again with a frying pan. They bury him  in the garden. Later, Gary Hallett a detective arrives looking for Jimmy. The women manage to fob him off, but Sally realises that he is literally the man of her dreams. How can it all work out?

Content: No sex or nudity. The film opens with a shot of a woman about to be hanged for being a witch, but the rope parts and she survives to curse the men in her life, and the men to be involved with her descendants. The aunts live in a wonderful house and we see the girls as children living in the town and putting up with their aunts being shunned because their witchiness is known. Gill leaves and it is not until she is involved with this abusive man that we meet her again, when Sally rescues her. Jimmy is killed twice and buried in the garden, causing a rose bush to grow prolifically over the grave. At one point Jimmy’s boots appear on the surface but sink again. Later Jimmy’s ghost seems to take over Gillian and tries to overcome Gary, but is unsuccessful due to the detective’s star.

A View: this was an expensive film which in the end was a box office bomb, despite the charm of the actors. Many of the critics found it to be uneven, which is probably right, some of it is quite whimsical and some of it is quite dark. The idea that a family can be cursed to ensure that the male members die is pretty bleak, no matter how it is spun on screen. The witches being able to bring the dead back to life, and the ghostly manifestation of Jimmy, who in life had apparently been a serial killer, is at the very least problematic. But even so there is apparently a sequel in the works – in 2024. So maybe wait for that.

Fun Fact: This film may be worth a view just for the house, which was built for the movie and pulled down afterwards. Very difficult to believe.