Practical Magic

• Cert:
• Cat.no: D 016322
• Running time: 100 minutes
• Year: 1998
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 31 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English (and hearing-impaired), Arabic
• Widescreen: 2.35:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 10
• Price: £15.99
• Extras (on side B): Scene index, Director/Producer/Actor Commentary, Casting The Spell, Making Magic, 17 TV Spots.

Director:

Griffin Dunne

Cast:

Sally Owens: Sandra Bullock
Gillian Owens: Nicole Kidman
Gary Hallett: Aidan Quinn
Jimmy Angelou: Goran Visnjic
Aunt Jet: Dianne Weist
Aunt Frances: Stockard Channing

Sally and Gillian Owens are not your average young girls, for they are the latest in a long line of Owens females to be plagued by a curse that dates back hundreds of years. Whenever they find true love, their significant other will bite the dust.

When as adults the curse inevitably strikes once again, Sally (Bullock) and Gillian (Kidman) begin to dabble in the powers of witchcraft that run in their family, and under the guidance of eccentric aunts Frances and Jet (Channing and Weist) they discover they may have unearthed more than they bargained for.

Practical Magic is by no means the first film to tackle this subject in a fairly lighthearted and fanciful way. Its charms are akin to the late 80s and early 90s productions from the likes of Tim Burton or Robert Zemeckis, only without quite the same freshness.

There’s an awful lot of talent on display here…..both in front of, and behind, the camera. The prospect of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman paired as sisters in an offbeat supernatural comedy/drama must surely have had the studio execs salivating at the anticipated financial windfall.

Throw in some dabblings with the occult, demonic possession and a run-in with the law….and you have – like one of the pitches in Robert Altman‘s The Player – “Beetlejuice meets The Exorcist meets Thelma & Louise”. In the most basic of terms, that’s pretty much what you get.

The Tim Burton-factor (the tone of this film often evokes that of his most fantastical work) can be traced to the presence of regular Burton producer Denise DiNovi, while the distinctly cutesy touches are more in Little Women territory – again, due to the behind-the-scenes personnel.

Ultimately, it’s the wonderful combination of Bullock and Kidman which saves the day, and makes the film far more enchanting and enjoyable than it might otherwise have been. They genuinely spark off each other, harnessing the slightly uneven material and injecting some welcome vibrancy.

Listening to the full-length commentary (with DiNovi, Bullock, director Griffin Dunne and composer Alan Silvestri) it’s obvious that a lot of care and attention to detail was invested into every aspect of making the film. What originally seems little more than an average and rather generic (if enjoyable) film becomes something more. Maybe not in whole, but certainly in many key parts.

It’s a mainstream Hollywood movie, with all that entails. When all is said and done, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman both at their most adorably ditzy for 90 minutes – plus some terrific music on the soundtrack – tip the balance favourably.

This was an excellent value ‘day & date’ title throughout the second half of 1999, with the sell-through VHS version only arriving in January of this year. As long as the actual film is appealing enough, it’s still a good purchase.

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