Practical Magic

Never Were There Such Devoted Sisters

There is a hidden danger in getting what you want instead of what you need, and as we learn in Practical Magic, that desire is even more dangerous when you use magic to get it. However, there is one antidote.

Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel is the saga of the Owens women, a chain stretching back to Maria Owens, a witch who called Massachusetts home in the 1600s and all that that entails. Hoffman’s initial tale—which would lead to two prequels, one sequel and a big screen adaptation in 1998—focuses on three contemporary generations: Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet, Sally and Gillian, and Sally’s teenage daughters, Antonia and Kylie. After their parents’ death, Sally and Gillian are sent to live with the aunts. Initially given free reign to do whatever they want (i.e. candy for breakfast, no bedtime), each displays their own form of rebellion. Gillian flees west of the Mississippi and Sally becomes the mother she never had, tending house and fixing healthy vegetarian meals. Sally meets a local man named Michael, she falls in love, and they have two children before the arrival of the death watch beetle, which signifies the demise of a loved one. Learning of a supposed curse that afflicts the partners of Owens women, Sally tries to shut her children off from learning magic. Roughly ten years later, Gillian returns to the East Coast looking for help to get rid of a problem, that problem being her abusive criminal boyfriend Jimmy.

All of the major plot points are the same in the book and the movie, but the paths to get between each are quite different. First, there is a heavy emphasis on geography in the novel. Sally leaves Massachusetts after her husband’s death and settles into what she envisions as a normal life in a normal house in a normal town in upstate New York. Gillian puts heavy stock into never returning to Massachusetts, which she does maintain through the story. This is in contrast to the movie which takes place entirely at the aunts’ original house, and what a house it is. Apparently, Barbra Streisand tried to buy the house, before learning it was a shell built for exteriors only. The house is its own character, similar to New York City in Sex and the City. Additionally, Gillian is responsible for Jimmy’s demise in the book, but in the movie, Sally kills Jimmy to protect Gillian. Sidenote: if I had a nickel for every time a character named Sally uses nightshade to knock out a controlling male character in a Halloween movie I would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. I quite like this change, as it gives Sally a great deal of agency and makes her immediately guilty, which raises the stakes she faces. The other really notable change is the age of Sally’s children. Antonia is a senior in high school and Kylie turns thirteen, unlocking her latent magical abilities. They are both significantly younger in the movie. While I really love their sisterly dynamics and the travails of being teenage girls, this is a change that while I was sad to see, makes a lot of sense. Aging them down removes a lot of the themes of puberty and blossoming sexuality, which would be extremely difficult to pull off in a romantic comedy. Onscreen, their relationships with their boyfriends, and even each other would take away from the main focus of Sally and Gillian.

Almost everything is more subtle in the book. We have access to the character’s interior monologues to thank for most of that, but also in the way magic is portrayed. Magic certainly exists in both versions, and while ultimately it is clear that magic is a powerful force in the world, there are no incantations. For the first third or so, it is debatable if there is actual magic or if it is the belief on the parts of the characters that creates the lasting effects. I prefer the book version. For example, those rapidly rising flowers—lilacs in the book, roses in the movie—are played differently. Hoffman treats them as this wicked, sinister spirit drawing different women from the whole town to Sally’s yard just to stare at the flowers. When Sally hacks them down it feels cathartic, but her onscreen counterpart, played by Sandra Bullock, plays it for comedy. This is the one area where I fully tip my cap to the novel—which I prefer, but objectively both are great. The novel is timeless. In a strange way, the movie is almost timeless because it’s so rooted in the 90’s from the fashion to the humor and even the camera angles which feel indescribably 90’s in the chunky maneuvering. (The days of shooting romantic comedies on 35MM are over!)

The film finds success by tightening in on the relationship between Sally and Gillian. To achieve this, the presence of Sally’s children is limited and the aunts are much more involved. (Margaritas, anyone?) Practical Magic really works when focusing on the middle sisters, thanks likely in no small part to Bullock and Nicole Kidman being true movie stars. Kidman, especially, has a lot of fun as the wild card. Why it works so well, even with the changes, is because the overall themes of the story are still present. The book works by reinforcing the bonds of sisterhood through different examples, the movie reinforces that by drilling down on what it deems the most important relationship in the story. I’ve already used the word timeless, but that’s what makes Practical Magic so ripe for adaptation. Its message of sisterhood and feminism makes sense whether it takes place in the 1600s or the 1900s and I would wager it will still be relevant in the 2200s.

Here’s a preview of our upcoming calendar, in case you’d like to follow along—

November 3 - Vineland and One Battle After Another (in theatres now)

December 1 - The Christmas Ring (in bookstores October 21, in theatres November 6)