# Practical Magic (1998)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

    PRACTICAL MAGIC (Warner Bros.)
    Directed by Griffin Dunne

All Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) wants is a normal life. Unfortunately, her heritage keeps tripping her up.

Sally is a descendent of a long line of witches -- she still lives in a tumble-down old house with her kooky aunts (Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing) who sell love spells to local sufferers of heartache -- and everyone in her small New England village insists on reminding her of that. Her shamelessly raunchy sister Gillian (Nicole Kidman) split town long ago to avoid local scorn but Sally has stuck around, trying desperately to live down the ridicule and struggling to break the curse that dictates every man an Owens woman loves will meet an untimely death.

There's a lovely theme about coming to terms with your history at the heart of "Practical Magic," and it's drawn straight from Alice Hoffman's enchanting best seller. Would that screenwriter Robin Swicord had taken a bit more from the book, a character-driven chronicle of passions both earthy and supernatural.

Instead, the movie beefs up one of the story's least interesting elements, the violent relationship between Gillian and her derelict beau Jimmy (Gorin Visnjic). It plays like "Bewitched" meets "The Burning Bed," particularly in a woefully miscalculated finale that almost sabotages the entire film. In the novel, Jimmy's ghost makes trouble by haunting Sally's garden; the movie opts for a more vicious, less intriguing form of retribution.

The most appealing aspect of "Practical Magic," unsurprisingly, is the pairing of Bullock and Kidman, two of the most likable stars around. Both are in terrific form here and the chemistry they generate single-handedly powers the film.

Sally proves to be one of Bullock's more challenging roles, requiring the actress to bury her sex appeal beneath layers of grief and dread until circumstances drive her to take action rather than always cowering on the sidelines. Generally thought of as a dramatic lightweight, Bullock's impressive emotional range here may silence some skeptics. Kidman is handed a far less complex role -- Swicord sees Gillian as basically a slightly long-in-the-tooth sex kitten -- but she packs enough humor and subtle self-disgust into it that she manages to give a bit of depth to a stereotype.

Director Griffin Dunne, whose acid-tinged "Addicted To Love" was one of those movies you either loved or hated, can't quite decide which way he wants to play this material and the tone of "Magic" swings freely between lighthearted fun and unscary horror. The movie is at its best when Sally and Gillian are in the process of re-establishing their sisterly bond, making mischief at a mothers' "phone tree" meeting or frantically casting a spell. The scenes involving the small-minded locals are unconvincing and beg the question of how Sally's boutique manages to stay in business when everyone around seems to despise her.

"Magic" ultimately gets by on the combined strength of its leads and the able assistance of Channing and Wiest, who bring a gleeful eccentricity to their work. The movie is agreeable fluff, but if the filmmakers had thrown in an extra dose of Bullock and Kidman and several more pages of Hoffman's original they would have concocted a much more potent brew. James Sanford

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