Practical Magic 2 will, unfortunately, have to be filed away next to the other poorly justified, cash-grab sequels. While the 1998 original did leave the door slightly ajar to the possibility that witch sisters Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gilly Owens (Nicole Kidman) failed to break the family curse that doomed any man they love to die, all its sequel does is circle around the same track with additional, diluted backstory.
We’ve barely begun before Sally and Gilly are back in their aunts’ ginormous kitchen arguing because the former has suppressed her magic and the latter has embraced it. Sally has continued to withhold knowledge of their inherited gifts from her now grown-up daughters, Kylie (Joey King, replacing Evan Rachel Wood, who appeared in the original and really should have been asked to return) and Antonia (Maisie Williams).
Yet when Kylie’s boyfriend (Xolo Maridueña), a dream man in all dimensions, ends up in a coma, she looks to a magical (possibly evil) book for a solution. A disembodied voice tells her to visit “the land of your ancestors” and then shows her a vision of a red telephone box. Sally and Gilly follow her to, yes, England, where they seek out the expertise of an academic occultist, Ian Wright (Lee Pace, with an accent as wonky as the film’s plot), who is again a dream man in all dimensions (much of it vertical).
open image in galleryKidman and Bullock, here also in the role of producers, have brought on their mutual previous collaborator Susanne Bier, who directed the former in TV’s The Undoing (2020) and The Perfect Couple (2024), and the latter in Bird Box (2018). An Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy winner, Bier’s transition from acclaimed Danish cinema to A-list-backed streaming projects, most notably the Tom Hiddleston-fronted The Night Manager, has associated her with a palatable, glossy brand of prestige. And Practical Magic 2 is certainly palatable and glossy. While the director achieves the odd mystical, soft focus shot of nature, the primary tool here is a lighthouse beam level of beauty lighting aimed at the faces of its stars, obliterating any sign that time has passed since the Owens sisters, and their midnight margarita-loving aunts Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest), last graced the screen.
It’s a far cry from the warm, autumnal embrace of the original, which maintained a lightness of touch that never undermined its central narrative of escape from domestic violence. You could argue, maybe, there’s a touch of the Southern Gothic here with all that bleached sunlight, and with the way Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett, and Kelly Marcel’s script reaches for the comparatively austere, with a (surprise, surprise) focus on generational trauma.
Practical Magic 2 goes heavy on the sell that “no magic is stronger than sisterhood”, yet, beyond Kidman and Bullock, the rest of the Owenses barely share screen time or character development. The theme is instead largely presented via an abruptly revealed, third-act antagonist, who’s given a lengthy monologue detailing some traumatic backstory none of the present Owenses seem to be listening to, which leaves the audience with the impression the film thinks those who aren’t born into loving homes are inherently evil.
open image in galleryKidman has a blast because Gilly largely reflects her offscreen persona – fun, sensuous, free – while the script struggles to offer the same to Bullock. She’s as likeable as ever but is asked to fumble her phone or stumble every other scene, as if her character is periodically forgetting and then remembering she’s clumsy. The most fun she’s allowed to have is being romantically gifted a gravy boat filled with custard by Ian.
Kidman and Bullock are superstars. The film yearns to be viewed as stylishly earnest. But no one’s seemingly sat down to properly think through what story deserves to be told about these characters nearly three decades down the line. It’s the kind of sequel I guess we should get comfortable with, arriving with all the fanfare in the world and then disappearing as soon as the credits roll. Does anyone remember there was another Freaky Friday last year?
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Dir: Susanne Bier. Starring: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Solly McLeod, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing. Cert 12A, 130 minutes.
‘Practical Magic 2’ is in cinemas from 11 September