Practical Magic | |
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Promotional poster |
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Directed by | Griffin Dunne |
Produced by | Denise Di Novi |
Screenplay by | Robin Swicord Akiva Goldsman Adam Brooks |
Based on | Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman |
Starring | Sandra Bullock Nicole Kidman Stockard Channing Dianne Wiest |
Music by | Alan Silvestri |
Cinematography | Andrew Dunn |
Editing by | Elizabeth King |
Studio | Village Roadshow Pictures |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date(s) | October 16, 1998 |
Running time | 103 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $75,000,000 |
Box office | $46,683,377[1] (domestic) |
Practical Magic is a 1998 American fantasy film directed by Griffin Dunne and starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as witches who carry on a family legacy of witchcraft and tragedy. The film is based on a book of the same name by Alice Hoffman. The original music score was composed by Alan Silvestri.
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Witchcraft has been passed down through generations to the Owens women. Two descendants, Frances and Jet live with their orphaned nieces Gillian (Nicole Kidman) and Sally (Sandra Bullock) in the fictional town of Maria's Island in Massachusetts. The Owens family has a curse: if an Owens woman finds true love with a man, he will die tragically, as was the case with the father of Gillian and Sally, whose death also brought on their mother's death due to heartbreak. Sally is the more gifted of the two while Gillian's talents are more in charm and persuasion. After witnessing their aunts cast a spell on a man for a woman who seems obsessed with having his love, Gillian decides to fall in love and Sally casts a true love spell to protect herself.
As adults, Gillian runs away to California, but not before the sisters cast an oath to each other using blood from both of their hands. Lonely without Gillian, Sally meets an apple salesman, Michael; they marry and eventually having two daughters, Kylie and Antonia. Three years later, Michael falls victim to the curse and dies when a car hits him, Sally and her daughters return to the Owens home to live with the aunts. Sally finds out the aunts cast a spell so she could fall in love. Sally swears off magic because the magical curses have ruined her life, and vows that her daughters will not do magic.
Meanwhile, Gillian begins a relationship with Jimmy Angelov. Meanwhile, Sally is mourning and refuses to leave her bed. Gillian feels that Sally needs her and drugs Jimmy to go visit her. Sally tells Gillian everything that she feels and Gillian in turn tells her about Jimmy. During this time, Sally and Michael opened their own botanical shop, Verbena. Kylie and Antonia visit their mother's shop and get into an altercation with the children of the men and women ridiculed them, but Sally stops them.
When Jimmy becomes abusive, Gillian returns to Sally, but Jimmy kidnaps both of them. Sally puts belladonna into Jimmy's tequila to knock him out, but Jimmy is killed. The sisters drive back to their aunts' house and attempt to resurrect him using the forbidden spell from their aunts' book of spells. His body becomes alive and Jimmy immediately attempts to kill Gillian, but Sally kills him again, and the sisters bury his body in the garden of the Owens home. Local state investigator Gary Hallett searches for Jimmy and deduces that Sally is the killer. Gillian has Kylie and Antonia create a potion that will banish Gary, but the plan fails. Eventually, Sally has Gary record her testimony. Again, Sally sees the letter she had once written Gillian, and realizes he must have read it more times than he had let on. Unable to deny their feelings for each other, they kiss passionately. Looking into his eyes, Sally sees that he has one green eye, one blue. Afraid of going any further, and realizing that the only reason he was there was the spell she had cast long ago, Sally leaves.
Sally finds that Jimmy's spirit has possessed Gillian's body. Gary, who had followed her, sees Jimmy's spirit emerge. Jimmy attempts to grab Gary's heart, but his star-shaped badge saves him and temporarily exiles the spirit. Later, Sally tells Gary of her spell, saying that the only reason he's here is because of that spell and the feelings they have for each other aren't real. Gary replies that curses are only true if you believe in them and he doesn't. He also says that he wished for her, too. He decides to leave town without arresting Sally.
Jimmy possesses Gillian again and attempts to kill Sally. Realizing that coven needs to be formed of 9 women to use witchcraft against Jimmy, Frances and Janet return. Sally realizes she must embrace magic to save her sister. She is also forced to ask the aid of townswomen who had feared the sisters. The women come, out of curiosity and a desire to help. The exorcism is a success and Jimmy's spirit is dispelled and the 300-year-old curse of the Owens women is ended when Sally repeats the spell that was mentioned as Gillian first left, while clasping their hands to mix each other's blood once more. The spell is lifted and Gillian returns.
Sally receives a letter from Gary telling her that she and her sister are cleared of any suspicion of wrongdoing in Jimmy's case and Gary eventually returns to the town to be with Sally. The Owens women celebrate All Hallow's Eve dressed up in stereotypical witch costumes, but they are embraced and welcomed by the townsfolk.
Some of the movie was filmed on an artificial set in California. Producers said the house was a big part of the depiction of the Owens' culture, so they knew they had to build a house to accurately depict this. They built it on San Juan Island, Washington. They brought much of the set from California and placed it inside the house, but it still took almost a year to perfect the image of the house and the interior. The house used is owned by the Sundstrom Family and is located on San Juan Valley Road, San Juan Island. They built a replica of the outside of the house on the west side of San Juan Island so that it looked like the house was on the waterfront, but in actuality it is in the valley. They built the house in San Juan County Park but since the house was built only for this filming, it was torn down after the movie was released.
According to Bullock in the film commentary, in the scene where the Owens women are drunk and slinging insults, the actresses actually got drunk on very bad tequila brought by Kidman. The cast also believes that the supernatural elements of the house started to affect them; the cast and crew claim to have heard ghost noises while filming the coven scene at the end of the movie.
For the final scene with all of the townspeople at the Owens' home, the entire population of the town where filming took place was invited to show up in costume and be in the movie as townsfolk.
Practical Magic | |||||
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photo by Suzanne Tenner |
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Soundtrack album by Various artists | |||||
Released | October 6, 1998 (original pressing) | ||||
Recorded | August 15–16, 1998, Abbey Road Studios (Michael Nyman tracks) | ||||
Genre | Soundtrack, Pop, Minimalism, Orchestral | ||||
Length | 56:58 (Nyman pressing) | ||||
Language | English | ||||
Label | Reprise/WEA | ||||
Producer | Danny Bramson, Sandra Bullock | ||||
Michael Nyman chronology | |||||
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Alan Silvestri chronology | |||||
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Composer Michael Nyman's score to the movie was abruptly replaced with music by Alan Silvestri for the theatrical release. This last-minute change resulted in the release of two soundtracks, although as primarily a compilation album, only the two tracks of newly-created material were changed. A 50-track demo (the last two tracks being "Convening the Coven" and "Maria Owens") of Nyman's score has been circulating among fans as a bootleg. The complete Nyman score runs 62:30 and contains music that would later appear, in altered form, in Ravenous and The Actors, as well as a bit of his stepwise chord progression theme from Out of the Ruins/String Quartet No. 3/Carrington/The End of the Affair/The Claim. "Convening the Coven," though not "Maria Owens," was subsequently reissued on The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980–2001, and music that uses material related to this piece has not been used elsewhere.
Singer Stevie Nicks headlined the soundtrack's published advertisements, promoting her songs "If You Ever Did Believe" and a new recording of her song "Crystal".
Total US Gross $46,850,558
International Gross $21,486,439
Worldwide Gross $68,336,997
The movie received mixed reviews, but most reviews claimed unsatisfying results. Although some critics enjoyed the depiction of magic and romance, others believed the movie was completely different from the novels, and that the description of witchcraft was practically nonexistent.
In 1999 the movie was nominated for the American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actress. That same year it was also nominated twice for the Blockbuster Entertainment Award and won one of the awards for Favorite Supporting Actress (Stockard Channing). It was lastly nominated for the Young Artist Award for Camilla Belle and Evan Rachel Wood.
Warner Bros. and ABC Family began developing a reboot of Practical Magic as a television series in October 2010.[2]
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