Practical Magic 2

When Practical Magic came out in the fall of 1998, directed by Griffin Dunne from the 1995 novel by Alice Hoffman, it did modest business. Its stars Sandra Bullock, as straight-laced Sally Owens who wants to deny her witch ancestors and magical heritage, and Nicole Kidman as her wild sister Gillian only too eager to embrace every aspect of witchery, were criticized for making a movie with “too many women” in it. The film’s odd mixture of romantic comedy, supernatural horror, drama, and more estranged many audiences, yet over the next near 30 years, with the invention of social media and streaming services, these very elements have progressively built a cult following. So much so that, combined with the 2021 release of the sequel novel The Book of Magic, there was a fresh demand for a return to the witches on Magnolia Street and their inherited curse in love.

In Practical Magic 2, directed by Susanne Bier, Sally and Gillian are back, older and wiser, but largely still dichotomies: Sally has lost her husband from the previous story, Gary Hallet, and is even more emotionally shut down than before, running the Owens library in town and devoted to her now grown daughters Kylie (Joey King, stepping in where Evan Rachel Wood had created the character in the original) and Antonia (Game of Throne’s Maisie Williams, stepping in for young actress Alexandra Artrip). Gillian is still carefree and uninhibited, though we get very little glimpse into her current dating/love life.

They are gathering for the birthday of their beloved aunt Jet, played here as in the first film by Dianne Weist. Her sister Frannie, played again by Stockard Channing, knows a secret that is only revealed to the sisters once they’ve all gathered in the kitchen for the celebration: the deathwatch beetle, established in the first story as the Owens sign of impending death, has been sounding for the last week. And it has come for Jet. Tonight.

Meanwhile, Kylie is falling for a young man named Gideon (Xolo Mariduena) but has not uttered the fatal words I love you. Due to Sally casting her final spell at the death of Hallet that erases her children’s memories of their witchy nature, neither young woman now knows of their heritage but recall childhood whisperings of the Owens family curse. Antonia is busy in nursing school and Kylie studies art. However, when she slips and confesses her feelings for Gideon, he is quickly in an accident and subsequent coma. Kylie confronts her mother, who is forced to reveal the truth. Kylie had previously discovered a mysterious book in Jet’s bedroom mentioning a curse and the methods to undo it – methods locked between two sealed pages. The book also mentions vital answers only available in England, at a place called Thornfield. This sends Kylie on a mission overseas.

With Jet having died and Kylie missing, Sally and Gillian frantically follow Kylie to England to find her. They are also led to a scholar of the craft, Ian Wright (Lee Pace), a man whose own troubled past with magic is written all over his body in esoteric tattoos. Sally hopes he will be able to assist them in finding Kylie and keeping her from the left-hand path of dark magic used to bring people back from the dead, among other things. Kylie is led to a young man named Tom (Solly McLeod) who reveals connections between his family and the Owenses, and this sets Kylie off on her desperate attempt to end the family curse and save Gideon.

The sequel adheres pretty closely to the novel it is based on, but like the first film adds its own cinematic flourishes and comedy dialogue. Bullock and Kidman are clearly at ease and enjoying the return to characters who have become so beloved by audiences. Their on-screen chemistry has not faded over the last twenty-eight years, and this anchors the audience as the sisters venture beyond their quaint seaside town and enter new territory, physically and magically, in England. It is pure joy to see Weist and Channing also back as the aunts, two women originally drawn in the novel as aloof, mysterious, nebulous women who are neither young nor old but now friendly, warm, knowable presences. And of course, one of the most vital components of both films – the house – is back, but this time built in the UK instead of Washington State in the original. Through the miracle of production magic, it looks practically identical.

The supporting cast fit well into this world, especially Lee Pace as a magic expert with a troubled past whose own personal pain endears him to Sally, who in order to find and rescue her daughter must rediscover and embrace who and what she is – a witch. Joey King is given much to do, as in the book, but Maisie Williams as Antonia is deprived of most of what her character does in the novel: she is pregnant, visiting a dying priest who had previously persecuted the Owens women but in later years developed a close friendship with Jet, and falling in love with a female lawyer (which could have addressed the ages-old curse as only applying to Owens women falling in love with men). In the film, she is pretty much consigned to Gideon’s hospital room with Frannie.

Practical Magic captured a specific flavor and time of the 90s, which is a large part of its appeal and nostalgia for audiences.

Practical Magic 2 brings that world into 2026 while never losing the magic, fun, and sense of sisterly love and family loyalty, maintained and saved by their inherited natures and gifts. And it never loses sight of the essentials of magic: