# Practical Magic (1998)

### reviewed by
Brian Takeshita

    PRACTICAL MAGIC

    A Film Review by Brian Takeshita

    Rating:  ** out of ****

I so much wanted to like this movie. I so much wanted to love this movie. I so much wanted to embrace this movie with both arms and once again be able to hold my head up high when I say, "I just can't get enough of Sandra Bullock." These days, I have a difficult time convincing even myself of this.

Sandra, Sandra, Sandra. What happened? You used to be America's sweetheart, now you can't make a truly good movie to save your life. With the possible exception of A TIME TO KILL, the last two and a half years have not been kind. If your next one is a critical as well as box office hit, it will be called your comeback. No Oscars, no Golden Globes, not even a stupid Blockbuster Award look near in your future. Excuse me while I shed a tear.

It would be easier if I could say that you've just had a run of bad luck, but I can't. You've chosen the scripts yourself. The last two movies were even co-produced by Fortis Films, your very own production company. Oh, woe! Oh woe! Such is the man....who longs once more to be a fan!

    Is that enough emoting?

Okay, I'll admit that was a tad melodramatic, but unfortunately, PRACTICAL MAGIC really is only the latest in a string of mediocre movies for Sandra Bullock. This one finds her playing Sally Owens, a witch. No, a real witch. Able to cast spells and all that stuff. She and her sister, Gillian (Nicole Kidman) were orphaned at a young age when their mortal father fell victim to the Owens family curse. You see, whoever falls in love with an Owens woman (and they're all witches) is doomed to die. Their mother died soon afterwards of a broken heart (oh, please), and the girls are raised by their aunts, who, besides eat chocolate for breakfast, don't care about homework, and don't impose a bedtime, also openly practice witchcraft. Repulsed by the idea that love could cause such sorrow, Sally wishes for a man who could never exist, so she could never be so enamored and therefore never know such pain. Years later, however, Sally falls in love, gets married, has two darling little daughters, and seems to live the ideal life. But then, of course, the 'ol curse kicks in and the husband dies in one of the most predictable surprises in a screenwriter's bag of tricks (if we could figuratively see the truck coming, he should have seen it literally). Sally learns that the impetus for her love was not natural, but rather a spell cast by her aunts to give her that little "push." Aghast that it was magic that caused her such misery, she disavows witchcraft and attempts to lead a normal life.

The scenes in the beginning with Sally and Gillian ("Gillybean," as Sally insists on calling her throughout the movie) as little girls is kind of cute, I'll admit, as are the scenes of Sally living the happy, married, motherly life. However, this stuff takes up about the first half hour, and is interspersed with narrative exposition. Ironically, the filmmakers wanted to fast forward through adolescence and part of adulthood, but took so much time doing so that it seems as if we're waiting forever to get on with the rest of the film. Not a good start.

The film seems to lose, regain, then lose focus throughout the course of it's two-hour running time. I wasn't sure whether the film was supposed to be about love, about the supernatural, or a combination of the two. I would take a stab and say a combination, but it's a pretty poor one, not being able to effectively intertwine the two motifs. "Bewitched" was even better than this. Is witchcraft and love supposed to go together? Are they supposed to exist separately? Is love a certain witchcraft of its own? These are the kinds of questions which are alluded to, but never explored and never answered. The screenplay by Robin Swicord, Akiva Goldsman and Adam Brooks seems content to throw things out and then never get around to tending to them. At one point, for example, one of the aunts takes money from a woman desperate to get a man to love her. The aunt says, "Be careful what you wish for," and proceeds to cast a spell. Yes, it's trite, but if this isn't made into a theme for the movie, why even include the line in the first place?

Did I go to see a movie, or a two-hour music video? This was a question I asked myself somewhere around the halfway mark after seeing the start of just about every other scene punctuated by an obtrusively loud pop song. What's worse, the movie includes the obligatory set piece where the soundtrack is actually a part of the scene. Oh, you've seen it before. Think Tom Cruise dancing around in his underwear in RISKY BUSINESS. Think Tom Cruise swinging a cue stick around in THE COLOR OF MONEY. Think Tom Cruise slinging drinks in COCKTAIL. Hey, isn't Nicole Kidman married to Tom Cruise? Bet they've got a serious stereo in the living room to score their home life.

For most of the movie, magic is very low-key. So low-key in fact, that one wonders if the magic is actually supposed to be real, or just David Copperfield illusions that the Owens women have learned. Well, maybe more like Doug Henning. About the biggest trick we see is a coffee spoon stirring by itself. Oh, wow. Okay, I guess more like that magician that goes from table to table at T.G.I. Fridays. You know, the one you want to ask, "If I give you a dollar, will you go away?" Anyway, the magic is so unimpressive and so seldom in occurrence that you quickly forget that the word "magic" is actually in the title of the film. Then something really big and laden with special effects happens, and it seems totally out of place because we're so unprepared for it. Don't even get me started on the ending, which is resolved with so little explanation that it seems it was thought up by someone in the last hours of a term paper all-niter who made his mandatory word count and just wants to finish it up and turn it in. He knows he's going to get a D anyway.

There are a couple of things that save this film from the level of drivel. First is the acting. For all their differences, Bullock and Kidman actually have some pretty decent sisterly chemistry. Aidan Quinn, who appears upon the scene as Sally's second love interest, is good as usual, and Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing are particularly delightful as the Owens aunts. Secondly, for all its plodding pace and nonsensical scenes, the film manages to pull off some entertaining moments and give us a few nice visuals. It's just too bad they're too few are far between.

As for you, Sandra, please pick some better scripts. I've promised to wait for you to come back to the world of the watchable, but a man can only be so patient.

    Review posted October 20, 1998

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