Practical Magic

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Practical Magic
Practical Magic film poster
Directed by	Griffin Dunne
Produced by	Denise Di Novi
Written by	Alice Hoffman (novel) Robin Swicord
Starring	Sandra Bullock Nicole Kidman Goran Višnjić
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	16 October 1998 (USA)
Running time	103 min.
Language	English
Budget	US$60,000,000
IMDb profile

Practical Magic is a 1998 film in which Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman star as witches who carry on a family legacy of witchcraft and tragedy. The film is based on a book by Alice Hoffman.

Tagline: There's a little witch in every woman.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 External link

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

For more than 200 years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong in their town. It all began with their ancestor, Maria, who was accused of being a witch. The Craft has passed through every generation to sisters Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest), their nieces, Gillian (Kidman) and Sally (Bullock) and Sally's two daughters; the women in the family never give birth to boys. The Owens family is cursed: any man who falls in love with an Owens woman will die tragically. The women of the town are apprehensive of the Owens women and their lifestyle, viewing them as evil and connected to the Devil.

When Sally was a child, she so despaired of falling victim to the curse, she cast a spell that would protect her from ever falling in love. She chose nearly impossible traits in a man, confident she'd never meet someone who meet them perfectly. The grownup Sally is desperate for a 'normal' life. She falls in love with the fish merchant Michael and marries him, in spite of the curse. Sadly, yet not unexpectedly, Michael meets a tragic end, leaving Sally grieving and disillusioned with magic. She comes home to her Aunts with her two daughters.

Gillian, impatient with life in a small town, moves away. She meets Jimmy (played by Goran Višnjić), who eventually turns abusive. Gillian calls Sally for help and when Sally arrives, Jimmy kidnaps them both. Sally puts belladonna, a poison, into Jimmy's tequila to knock him out, but uses too much and accidentally kills him. The panicked sisters try to resurrect him using a forbidden spell from their Aunts' book of magic; a spell so dark the Aunts refused to use it to bring back Sally's dead husband, fearing he would come back as something perverse and unnatural. These fears are confirmed when Jimmy returns, as evil and cruel as ever. Sally is forced to kill Jimmy a second time, this time hitting him on the head with a frying pan.

His soul is restless and soon begins to haunt the sisters. The aunts find it necessary to leave for a while, Sally and Gillian are left to deal with Jimmy. Soon they find themselves under suspicion for Jimmy's disappearance by Officer Gary Hallett (Aidan Quinn).

[edit] Cast

Sandra Bullock (Sally Owens)
Nicole Kidman (Gillian Owens)
Stockard Channing (Aunt Frances Owens)
Dianne Wiest (Aunt Bridget 'Jet' Owens)
Goran Visnjic (James 'Jimmy' Angelov)
Aidan Quinn (Officer Gary Hallet)
Evan Rachel Wood (Kylie Owens)
Alexandra Artrip (Antonia Owens)
Mark Feuerstein (Michael)

[edit] Trivia

Composer Michael Nyman's score to the movie was abruptly replaced with music by Alan Silvestri by test screening. This last minute change resulted in the release of two soundtracks.
According to Sandra Bullock during the commentary, in the scene where Owens women are drunk and slinging insults, the actresses actually got drunk: They were drinking some very bad tequila that Nicole Kidman brought.

At the end of the film, all of the Owens women and children are wearing black robes and red-and-white striped stockings, similar to those worn by the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.