Feature film “Practical Magic 2”: Midnight Margarita and magic

The eternal youth magic seems to be working. Because the fact is: the faces that look at a sequel to Griffin Dunn's witch tragicomedy, made 28 years after “Practical Magic,” are almost the same as they were in 1998.

On the one hand, there is the serious, good, brunette witch Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock), who came up with a magic trick to prevent falling in love because the women of the Owens family, who are skilled in magic, are subject to a curse that causes every love interest to die. That didn't work - Sally was able to keep her now grown daughters Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams) away from magic, but their beloved husband has long been dead due to the unfavorable curse.

The other, equally surprisingly young face belongs to Sally's free-spirited, red-haired witch sister Gillian (Nicole Kidman), who at least enjoyed a somewhat joyful life thanks to her motto "Sex is better than love anyway."

Practical Magic 2. Director: Susanne Bier. With Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman and others USA 2026, 110 min.

The enchanted and desirable villa in which Gillian and Sally's aunts (and thus Kylie and Antonia's great-aunts) Franny and Jet Owens (Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest) once wore caftans and turbans day and night in the most beautiful old maid style, drank margaritas and grew witch's herbs, still stands. In the sequel, directed by Susanne Bier based on a book by Alice Hoffman, it even grows into an exemplary multi-generational house: Because Jet will soon die (or at least do what powerful witches do when they are no longer actively practicing), on certain moonlit nights six women from three generations of the same family now gather for the Midnight Margarita ritual.

Similar to the first film, this story also needs some time to get going and get on track: Kylie and her fiancé confess their love to each other, which, according to the Owens curse, has dire consequences - the young man falls victim to an accident and falls into a coma. To save him, Kylie, Sally and Gillian head to picturesque England, where the curse is believed to have originated. They seem to get help from a handsome, full-body tattooed witch professor named Ian Wright (Lee Pace), who has cast one of his beautiful eyes on Sally. But things are still not easy.

There is a lot of potential in Bier's version of the modern, self-empowered and yet touchingly classic witch story: the costumes of the 78-year-old Wiest and the 82-year-old Channing alone are a feast for the eyes - their characters are dressed in opulent robes and thick bling, the obligatory turbans complete the outfit.

A lot could also be drawn from the latent tensions between Sally and Gillian caused by the sisters' different lifestyles - here the withdrawn, magic-hostile Sally, dressed in spinster-pointed clothes ("you are an iceblock in 90s clothing," her sister hisses at her); there the ageless, statuesque lady who apparently still likes to wield other people's magician's wands. Director Bier and her three screenwriters, Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, rely a lot on the alleged solidarity of sisters and women, especially in the first half hour, in which only women proudly chatter on the soundtrack.

But the makers decide on a compromise based on too many rotten ingredients: they spice up their work with silly, sparkling, unsightly television aesthetic magic, pull plot-driving characters out of the box that suddenly reveal important motives; and hardly take advantage of the actresses Bullock and Kidman's obvious willingness to fool around.

Due to the focus on the storyline with Kylie and Antonia, who (like Sally) have to recognize magic as their own strength, the somewhat sedate style that is far removed from modern Wicca feminism and the rather ineffectual depiction of magic, one also wonders who should actually watch the film - it will be too tame for young people, and either too silly or not silly enough for old people.

Even the music is braver than the visuals: In addition to the witch of honor Stevie Nicks, who always proudly flirted with her image, Miriam Makeba and even Harry Nilsson's legendary “Coconut” song, prominently placed in the first film, try to save the atmosphere. But “Practical Magic 2” never really manages to break away from the 90s.

On the other hand, the reception of the first part may have been a case of real witchcraft: the film completely flopped at the box office at the time and only found its loyal fan base over the years, which ultimately gave it the status of a cult film. Hopefully the old spell is still strong enough for the second part.