Nicole Kidman in “Practical Magic 2." Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros. “I’m sure you’ve heard tell of the Owens sisters,” begins the opening narration to Practical Magic 2. If you have, the movie suggests, here’s your invitation to drop in on their rambling New England home once more, after all this time — and as an exercise in nostalgia, the film works well enough to conjure a few warm sparks, if not quite to cast its own spell.
If, on the other hand, you haven’t heard of the Owens sisters? Or if you have, but haven’t harbored any particular desire to revisit them? Well, then, this Susanne Bier-directed fantasy might as well be a spellbook with all its pages glued shut, for all the enchantment you’re likely to extract from it.
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Practical Magic 2
The Bottom Line Harmless, but hardly enchanting. Release date: Friday, Sept. 11 Cast: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Solly McLeod, Stockard Channing, Dianne Wiest Director: Susanne Bier Screenwriters: Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett, Kelly Marcel Rated PG-13, 2 hours 10 minutesAs with the 1998 original, the single best reason to watch the sequel is the chemistry between Sandra Bullock’s Sally and Nicole Kidman’s Gilly. Nearly three decades after we last visited these characters, Sally has settled into a new career as a librarian, while Gilly … actually, I’m not quite sure what Gilly does, other than flit about town delighting children with minor charms. Meanwhile, Bullock and Kidman have graduated from white-hot ingenues to permanent legends.
But when the Owens sisters are back onscreen together, blending up midnight margaritas or teasing each other about boys (well, men), all those intervening years melt away until they seem, once again, like the little girls who once eavesdropped on their first love spell from the safety of a stair landing. If the jokes seem a bit more exaggerated this time and their bond much less complex, the palpable affection coursing between Kidman and Bullock remains as sturdy a foundation as ever.
It’s everything Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel’s script builds on top of it that seems in danger of falling apart — starting with the very premise that has us all here again.
Practical Magic 2 reveals that in the years since we last caught up with this clan, Sally’s husband Gary — he of the boldly romantic but apparently extremely incorrect declaration that “curses only have power if you believe in them” — has succumbed to the same curse that’s killed every other love interest of an Owens woman. Understandably, Sally is devastated. Less understandably, she determines the best way to protect her daughters from the same heartbreak is simply to never tell them about the curse, or any other witchy business, in the first place.
And so it is that Sally’s girls, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams), have gotten all the way to young adulthood blissfully unaware that to fall in love with someone is essentially to condemn that person to an early demise. But when the death watch beetle starts creeping around Kylie’s boyfriend (Xolo Maridueña), an emotionally available DJ — the script’s words, not mine — the truth about her bloodline comes spilling out. Furious at having been deceived her whole life, Kylie hops on the next plane to the Owens’ ancestral home in England with the intent of breaking the curse once and for all.
Sally, naturally, has no choice but to chase after her. Which, in turn, means Sally must tap back into the supernatural gifts she’d repressed, with a positively giddy Gilly on hand for spiritual and emotional support. Throw in an exceedingly handsome love interest (Lee Pace’s Ian) who’s dabbled in the mystical arts himself and a suspiciously helpful Englishman (Solly McLeod’s Tom) who may know more about the harrowing Owens history than he’s letting on, and Practical Magic 2 practically finds itself sprinting to get through all the necessary plot beats.
But if the relentless momentum makes the film breeze by somewhat faster than its 130-minute run time, it also precludes the sort of complex, nuanced storytelling required to lend the narrative any emotional heft. We’re given hardly a moment to mourn Sally’s estrangement from her supernatural gifts before she’s taken full possession of them again; we get only the vaguest glimpse of Sally and Kylie’s relationship before it’s ruptured and then repaired again.
And we certainly never linger long enough on any of the supporting characters to explore them in any depth. That Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, reprising their roles as kooky Owens aunts Jet and Franny, have only modest parts to play in Sally’s frantic search for her daughter across England is unsurprising. At least these lovable characters are given sendoffs exactly as pretty — golden sparks, blooming flowers, tears, a Stevie Nicks soundtrack — as they deserve.
More disappointing, and more baffling, is how completely uninterested Practical Magic 2 is in the next generation of Owens girls. While Williams and King have a sunny, relaxed rapport in the scenes they share, those are few and far between. For most of the movie, they’re separated not only from each other but from their other relations — Kylie to blunder alone across England while waiting for her mom and aunt to catch up, Antonia to do somehow even less from the bedside of a coma patient in Massachusetts.
In fairness, the earlier (and superior) Practical Magic wasn’t exactly blessed with airtight plotting or precise world-building, either. It rightly trusted that the unbreakable bond between Gilly and Sally would be enough to shoulder most of the narrative, and the vague hand-waving invocation of “magic” would handle the rest. The sequel, likewise, works better the less you look for any sense of logic, and the more you just lean into the transient joys of watching these actresses bounce off each other.
In that light, so what if the flirtation between Ian and Sally feels reverse-engineered from a checklist of obligatory Practical Magic plot elements? Pace and Bullock still make a pretty endearing pair, especially with Kidman there to smirk knowingly at their obvious attraction. So what if Gilly doesn’t actually have anything to do here at all? She’s perfectly delightful just serving as Sally’s eager sidekick. And so what if the triumphant final show of the Owens’ power feels disconnected from anything that’s come before it, when the vision of them floating down makes for such a sweet image?
As the Owens well know, some spells are built to last, others to be broken. Some movies are made to endure in the public’s affection, such that there’s appetite for a follow-up even decades later. Others are content simply to provoke a few smiles, before dissipating like smoke with the very next breeze.
Full credits
Distributor: Warner Bros. Production companies: Alcon Entertainment, Domain Entertainment, Di Novi Pictures, Fortis Films, Blossom Films Cast: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Solly McLeod, Stockard Channing, Dianne Wiest Director: Susanne Bier Screenwriters: Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett, Kelly Marcel Producers: Denise Di Novi, Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman Executive producers: Donald Sabourin, Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson Director of photography: Simon Duggan Production designer: Tom Burton Costume designer: Alexandra Byrne Editor: Sam Williams Composer: Rupert Gregson-Williams Casting director: Jina Jay Rated PG-13, 2 hours 10 minutesTHR Newsletters
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