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REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP
Our rating: 2 out of 5 Because of: witchcraft Rated:
What is it about magic that is so attractive? Perhaps it is the ability to control the circumstances that shape our life. Each human heart yearns for control, and whenever our world spins out of our hands, we experience a sense of panic. It is in this that we find a need for magical intervention; however, there is a danger in taking stories about witchcraft too seriously... or not seriously enough.
The women in the Owens family have been cursed for several hundred years, ever since one of their ancestors put a hex on a former lover who never returned to her side after she was banished to an island after being accused of witchcraft. Each man who falls in love with an Owens woman meets a deadly fate. When the curse takes the lives of their parents, young Sally and Gillian are sent to the home of their eccentric aunts, Frances (Stockard Channing ) and Bridget (Dianne Wiest). The two peculiar old maids dress as though they live in the Victorian era, and have an enormous old rambling house filled with secrets. Knowing that they must prevent the girls from abusing their talents, the aunts begin to teach them how to use their magical skills.
As you should know just by the title, the plot revolves around a family of witches, and resulting spell-casting, talk of curses (some of them coming to pass), and other "magical" references. These activities range from the clever and seemingly innocent (lighting candles with a breath) to the dark and dangerous (attempting to raise a man from the dead, with exceedingly dreadful results). The girls are told not to repress their skills, that magic exists in everyone, and when Sally has need of the women of the town to cast a ghost out of her sister, all of them come out in support. In a long and disconcerting sequence, Gillian is possessed by the spirit of a dead man, and Sally, the aunts, and the townspeople perform a casting-out spell. The ghost also appears in full form to a homicide detective (Aidan Quinn) and attempts to kill him by plunging his hand through the man's chest.
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PRACTICAL
MAGIC
Years
later, Gillian (Nicole Kidman) has had enough and runs away with her
boyfriend, determined to live wild and see the world, while the
mild-mannered Sally (Sandra Bullock) remains at home. Rejecting her skills
and wanting to blend in, Sally finds just the right man and settles down.
They have a wonderful marriage and two kids ... and then the curse kicks
in. Having lost her husband, Sally and her girls return to the aunts,
unknowingly setting in motion a dark series of events that bring Gillian
home and lead up to a murder investigation, among other things. The story,
based on the best-selling novel by Alice Hoffman, is exceedingly clever
and the characters are likable, but the film does seem to move without
direction for the first half, wandering through its script in a search for
meaning.
The
plain truth is that this film should make Christians a little uneasy, even
those who normally don't feel a twinge in watching stories about witches. Most
of the movie is cute and innocent, but some parts of it dabble in the
darker forces -- like Sally and Gillian attempting necromancy. It is
condemned not only through the consequences, but the opinion of the aunts
(the girls are warned that "someone who is dead will not come back to
you; it will be something else"). The movie is quite funny and does
have some fantastic moments. It also has light content, the most of it is
a passionate making-out session that is interrupted before it goes
anywhere, two uses of GD, and a handful of mild profanities. A possessed
Gillian licks her sister's cheek. The problem is that unlike fairy tales,
it leaves you wondering what you would do with the power the Owens
women have. "It would be nice to have magic," you think.
And that can be dangerous.