A Case of Practical Magic (1998)
It’s almost Fall, Witches! And that means we’re gearing up for Spooky Season here at the BCD. This week, we decided to cover a film that has become a 90s Autumn staple over the last two decades.
Based on the novel by Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic is an endearing story about love and sisterhood, with a dash of homicide and a pinch of demonic possession. With striking 90s fashion and two irresistible leading ladies, it’s everything you could possibly want from a film about small-town witchcraft.
So, gather some ingredients and light some candles, it’s time to cast some spells with The Owens Sisters in Practical Magic.
Summary
After the tragic loss of their parents, Sally and Gillian Owens move in with their aunts. The aunts teach the girls about the family’s connections to witchcraft, especially among the women. One night, the young girls witness the disastrous effects of love and desperation, and Sally casts a spell that she's sure will prevent her from falling in love.
Years later, Sally gets a call in the middle of the night from Gillian, who is trapped in an abusive relationship with a violent man named Jimmy Angelov. When Sally comes to the rescue, things go horribly awry and Gillian’s boyfriend dies unexpectedly. The women head home with the corpse and attempt to raise Jimmy from the dead, accidentally introducing an evil spirit into their lives that threatens to destroy their family. When a detective arrives and starts asking questions about Jimmy Angelov, the once-peaceful lives of the Owens family (and Sally’s love life) become even more complicated.
The Book
The film is based on the book of the same name by Alice Hoffman. The book is now a four-part series with the book Practical Magic falling into third in the series (even though it was written first) due to the timeline. After being asked for years to write a sequel, she returned to the Owens sisters and wrote the prequels and sequel in 2017-2021. Practical Magic was her first novel adapted to film. Later she would also have Aquamarine and The River King also adapted.
The book and movie do have differences. Although the film was clearly really inspired by the book, it seems that the feel of the characters and story is different. While fans commonly prefer books to their movie adaptations, Practical Magic seems to be an exception to this rule. Although the book is popular, the movie has a certain cult classic magic to it.
Here’s a list of some of the major differences
1. The movie was set in a small town while the book takes place in the Suburbs.
2. The book discusses more about what the Aunts, the two women that take in Gillian and Sally, do for the women in the town.
3. Sally and Gillian are much more skeptical of magic in the book. They question if it truly works.
4. Sally lives in a different house than the Aunts after her husband dies.
Sally’s girls are also older in the book and not as sweet.
5. Sally and Gillian’s relationship is more complicated and strained in the book.
6. Jimmy’s storyline is a much smaller part in the book as there are other tragedies that also appear.
7. Finally, there is no love curse on the Owens women in the book. Their husbands die, but not due to a curse.
When asked by Emily Burack at Hey Alma in 2021, Hoffman said of the movie “I love the movie. It’s different from the book. The movie always has to be different than a book because you’re in such a different medium. But I feel so lucky that all those truly great actresses are in one movie. The fact it’s about women and women’s relationships — at its core, it’s about a form of sisterhood — I think has made it more popular over the years. So it’s kind of a cult movie. I feel really lucky to have been involved with it.”
She also revealed that the producer (Denise Di Novi) has the rights to The Rules of Magic and Magic Lessons which are the two prequel books.
Making of
Robin Swicord was the first to adapt the story for the screen, before Akiva Goldsman and Adam Brooks did rewrites. Swicord wrote the screenplay for several other films, including Matilda and Little Women (1994). Akiva Goldsman and Adam Brooks are also accomplished writers, with Goldsman specializing in book-to-film adaptations.
The script’s first home was at Turner Pictures, but when it went to Warner Brothers, the film was greenlit right away.
Their first choice for the character Sally was Sandra Bullock, who read the script and enthusiastically agreed to do the film. She joined Denise Di Novi as a co-producer, and the two of them enjoyed working together. Di Novi has produced classics like Heathers and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and she’s still producing today.
Sandra Bullock was also the one to suggest that Nicole Kidman play Gillian, the other female lead and sister to Sally Owens. Everyone loved the idea, but Kidman was booked to film another movie. They were able to wait until production wrapped on her other project, so she was able to be in the movie after all. Bullock and Kidman had only met once briefly, but their chemistry was undeniable on screen.
When it came time to choose a director, Bullock and Di Novi decided on Griffin Dunne. They chose him because of his ability to blend fantasy and reality, and they knew he could bring a whimsical quality to the movie.
As Dunne directed, Di Novi was sure to protect him in the role by supporting him, inspiring him, and believing in him. Dunne never even saw her freak out! She was calm throughout the entire production, even when things went awry.
Di Novi and Dunne had a way of balancing each other out for the final product. Denise would push Griffin to lean into the sentimental points of the story, and he would push her to lean into the darker aspects.
When searching for a place to shoot, Dunne really wanted somewhere sunny. He did not want the movie to have a lot of dark and rainy scenes. Unfortunately, though, they were scouting at the height of El Nino.
Mary McLaglen, another producer, suggested Washington which isn’t exactly known for its sunny weather. But, it ended up being the perfect place. McLaglen convinced them to look at San Juan island. Shortly after they decided on this location for the house, Indian artifacts were found there. It turned out that it may be a burial ground. This was the third filming location in Griffin’s career where he may have stumbled upon sacred ground. He seemed to have a knack for it.
They were permitted to build the house and have a garden but only if the crew didn’t break ground in this location. In order to accommodate this request, the house was built on a platform and the garden was like a huge sandbox that was on top of the earth.
Partially due to this fact, much of the interior shots were done on sound stages at Warner Hollywood Studios.
The house was built with such meticulous detail that many people thought it was real and had been standing for 200 years. It was designed to be white and cheerful with a Victorian style. It was looked at as another character in the movie. Even though it looks similar to the Addams Family house, they wanted to avoid any “Charles Addams associations.”
In addition Dunne made a deal that they would break down the house the day after they were finished shooting. So by 5-o-clock the next day it was already gone.
Because the film deals with the supernatural, some special effects had to be used.
The very first effect that was considered early on was how to approach the ghost version of Jimmy, played by Goran Visnjic. In the original script, Jimmy was a Texan and didn’t have much dimension. After casting for about 2 weeks, Dunne was bored with the part. So when he met Goran it all fell into place. Goran had taught himself English and was from Croatia so the character was changed to specifically fit Goran.
John Sheele (pronounced Sheelee) was the visual effects supervisor for the film, working alongside his partner Chris Sanger. They were brought in for pre-production because Griffin Dunne wanted to get ahead of the game. They were one of the first ones hired.
Dunne wanted to seamlessly include supernatural elements. In order to accomplish this, he had his friend and production designer, Robin Standefer, attend the special effects meetings to match the effects to the look of the movie.
Standefer and Dunne really liked the look of Daguerreotype photos. Daguerreotypes were images on silver copper plates. In order for a person to be photographed that way, the person had to be incredibly still for a long period of time. It was the first widely used form of photography. People would often use it to take pictures of their dead children to remember them. Standefer and Dunne liked how the photos made people’s eyes look, and it was a great starting point for the discussion on how Jimmy would appear as a spirit. You can see the influence in his final look when Jimmy’s skin is a reflective silver color with piercing, reflective and haunting eyes.
One of the most fun and iconic scenes in the film is when Gillian and Sally wake in the middle of the night to the sound of The Aunts making Midnight Margaritas.
We cannot discuss this movie without one of the most fun scenes in the movie, the Margarita scene!! According to the commentary it was really pretty much everyone's favorite scene. Many said it was the most fun to shoot, although Sandra Bullock said that she almost knocked into the cameramen several times. This kept almost happening because the cameramen had Steadicams and were moving around almost as fast as the actors.
In the audio commentary, Dunne recalls that Di Novi was responsible for the idea for this scene. According to him, she had “show business truisms” and one of them is that if you have that many women in a film, you need to have them sing and dance together. The example that she gave was from another film she produced, a little film called Beetlejuice, where they sing and dance “Day O!”
Di Novi only recalled that she knew Sandra was a great dancer and that they needed to show it off.
Diane Wiest and Stockard Channing play The Aunts. Wiest, who has been in things like Robots, Life in Pieces, and Edward Scissorhands plays Aunt Jet. Stockard Channing, who famously played Rizzo in Grease, plays Aunt Frances. It was decided that the pair would not have a whole lot of make-up on them. Griffin wanted their own beauty to come through.
When Griffin was younger he loved the song “Lime in the Coconut” when it came out and so it meant a lot that he was able to use it specifically in this scene.
Normally in a scene like this, you would play the music and have the actors get used to it, then cut the music and have them dance and sing. That audio would then be combined with the music for a clean audio track.
Griffin did not want this. He thought that they should be dancing and singing along as we hear the music. He thought it fit more with the spirit of the song.
In the film, there is also a romantic plot between Officer Gary Hallet, played by Aidan Quinn, and Sally.
The chemistry between Aidan and Sandra was perfect. At one point he said, “she bewitched me, she really bewitched me.” Sandra and Di Novi agreed during the commentary that Aidan is not only a handsome man with beautiful blue eyes but that he brings integrity and honesty to his roles.
Sandra said in the scene where she has to lie to the officer (but can’t because he is her true love), she is “doing a Griffin.” Apparently, the director has that kind of a cadence and chopped talking when discussing what his vision is for the scenes. It seemed as though his mouth couldn’t catch up with his thoughts or vice versa.
In what Alan Sylvestri aptly called the “Tupperware Exorcise Party,” Sally gathers a group of women to work together to get rid of Jimmy’s spirit. The women in the scene had no trouble remembering the incantations because the scene took three days to shoot and they repeated the lines the entire time. The scene was very draining and emotional for everyone. Kidman wanted it to look realistic, slamming her head on the floorboards. The crew, therefore, created rubber boards so she would not hurt herself.
The film’s score was composed by Alan Sylvestri, who is most known for working on films directed by Robert Zemeckis. These films include Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and more.
Sylvestri didn’t want to be too literal with the music, so he instead gave a broader sense of the entire film.
However, during the scene when Jimmy comes back as a ghost for the first time, the music is more playful, like a spider playing with a fly. The music sounds like a standoff with mystery and supernatural elements, but not grand and monstrous.
Sylvestri used let motifs throughout the film. For example “The Legend Theme” from the beginning of the movie comes back around when Gillian is telling Sally’s daughters about the spell Sally cast to prevent her from falling in love. It’s similar to the beginning of the film because it is about an Aunt passing on a family story.
There was an original score composed for this movie by Michael Nyman, but it was abruptly replaced for the theatrical release. This change resulted in the release of two soundtracks, although only as a compilation album. A 50-track demo of Nyman's score, including the two tracks from the official album, has been circulating among fans as a bootleg.
Reception
Practical Magic opened at #1 making $13.1 million at the box office. However, that was not enough to make this film a success. The movie would only go on to gross $68.3 million worldwide, which is less than its $75 million budget.
Unfortunately, critics were harsh, and the movie currently has a 23% on rotten tomatoes, with most reviews citing its tonal shifts and not really knowing what it wants to be.
However, it’s not all bad! Fan reviews are much more positive and give the film a 73%. Fans agree that the acting and chemistry between the four leading witches are brilliant and memorable. Additionally, it holds a place for many as a movie to rewatch every fall season.
Almost all of the women in this film, including Sally’s daughters, were nominated for awards for acting. The only one to win, however, was Stockard Channing for Favorite Supporting Actress in a Comedy/Romance. (Blockbuster Entertainment Award)
After the cult-classic success of the film, a few attempts were made to turn it into a series. First, in 2004 there was a pilot called "Sudbury." Starring Kim Delaney, Jeri Ryan, and Kat Dennings, but unfortunately, it was not picked up. The second attempt was in 2010 when ABC Family (now Freeform) announced it would be producing a television reboot of the film. This series, too, never made it to air.
Fun Facts
The Curse!
Dunne admitted that although he loved the setting of the story, he was not well-versed in witchcraft. So he hired a witch consultant for the film. She would later demand extra money and a percentage of the film's profits, which Dunne said would not be possible. Dunne recalled that she told a producer, "I'm going to put a curse on you. I'm putting a curse on this movie, and I'm putting a curse on Griffin."
Because of this, Dunne ended up having his own exorcism to cover his bases, even though he says he “gives them no power!”
After seeing the film, the famous singer and actress, Barbra Streisand actually offered to buy the enchanting Victorian-style house. However, the house wasn’t really a house. The builders created what's called an "architectural shell" to serve as exterior set pieces and the interior sets were built on sound stages.
During the “midnight margaritas” scene, the actors (and some of the crew) were drinking real alcoholic drinks. For authenticity’s sake of course!
Conclusion
Practical Magic is a true cult classic. It flopped at the box office, got torn down by critics, and has enjoyed a slow rise to mainstream popularity. This film is charming, fun, and in some ways, unpredictable. Fans come in expecting a light-hearted rom-com with some magical elements, only to find a story that includes abuse, accidental killing, and dark magic. But no matter how bad the circumstances become, the characters can overwhelm the darkness with the help of the women around them.
Despite its original reception, this film has delighted film fans for almost 25 years. And to us, that means it’s practically magical.