In Practical Magic, sisters Sally and Gillian Owens use magic to cover up an accidental murder. This cult classic contains witchcraft, sexuality, harsh language, mirky spirituality and a theme of domestic violence—not the ingredients you want brewing in your family’s cauldron.
The dating scene can be difficult these days—a notion understood by few more than the Owens sisters. Not only is it difficult to find a solid partner, but even when they do, any man who falls in love with an Owens woman dies an untimely death.
Sisters Gillian and Sally have been told of their family’s self-inflicted misfortune since they were children. In an attempt to never feel the unbearable pain of heartbreak again, their ancestor Maria cast a spell over herself so that she would never be tempted to fall in love again.
Maria’s act of supposed self-preservation has morphed into a generational curse. It’s how the sisters’ father allegedly died—and their mother, unable to bear her grief, passed away not long after—leaving the girls to be raised by their witchy aunts, Frances and Jet.
Now, the sisters remain close but are separated by distance. That is, until the untimely deaths of two men bring them back together: One at the hands of the Owens sisters’ curse, the other at the hands of the Owens sisters themselves.
Reuniting with the aunts that raised them, the sisters must figure out how to cover their tracks. But while coming home comes with its comforts—typically in the form of a midnight margarita—the comforts of home can’t negate that fact that there is a man buried in the Owens’ backyard.
That is, if he stays buried.
Sally and Gillian have a positive, sweet sisterly bond. They frequently support, forgive and comfort one another through difficult times. That said, the sisterhood they share ties in thematically with the concept of a witch’s coven, and some of the aforementioned support comes in the form of covering up a murder.
While her marriage doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time, Sally and her husband, Michael, love each other dearly and have built a healthy family dynamic with their two young daughters, Kylie and Antonia.
Given the subject matter, heavy spiritual content is inevitable—but the way Practical Magic chooses to present its witches is, at times, much darker than you may expect. Sally reports that there is “no devil in the craft,” which is a fine sentiment, but the film clearly borrows heavily from real-life pagan practices.
Early on in the film, the aunts tell Gilly and Sally that witches “don’t mess with people’s lives.” From what we see in this film, that seems far from the truth.
As mentioned in the introduction, there’s the looming threat of the family curse, which has clearly messed with the lives of many people and is a frequent point of contention between the sisters. The appearance and sound of a “deathwatch” beetle is the only signal that any poor chap unlucky enough to fall for Gilly or Sally is about to meet his end.
Characters also discuss whether they should attempt to bring people back from the dead. The aunts warn their nieces that attempting to do so will also bring something “dark and unnatural,” but Sally and Gillian try it anyway. This resurrection ceremony includes candles, a mix of various witchy paraphernalia and piercing the eyes of a bird with needles. They also draw a pentagram on a dead man’s chest with whipped cream.
The sisters should have heeded their aunts’ advice. They indeed summon something dark and unnatural that then possesses a victim. The victim writhes around in pain and is thrown around a room while the spirit manifests itself in ghostly form. A coven of women surrounds the victim with broomsticks and mutters an incantation to exorcise the spirit. A concoction is also brewed in a large cauldron and then poured over the victim to cleanse her of the spirit.
Gilly is spooked by the sight of a blood moon, and races to find her tiger’s eye gemstone to bring her luck. She cries out to God to help her in a moment of desperation, the only indication that she may believe in a higher power other than her own witchcraft.
Spells, potions, incantations and hexes are all thrown around consistently. One woman asks for a spell that will make a man want her so badly that he “can’t stand it”—and so he’ll leave his wife for her. A ritual takes a traditional burial prayer out of context: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” A flashback to a witch trial depicts a man reading from a Bible. The witch on trial uses magic to avoid being hung, prompting a bystander to cry out, “Lord save us!” A group of witches float off the roof of their home on Halloween for the amusement of a crowd.
When Sally is a little girl, she casts a spell on herself so that she’ll never fall in love and become a victim of the family curse. Later in the film, one of her daughters incidentally casts a spell on a classmate, shouting “I hope you get chicken pox” at the boy. (He indeed contracts chicken pox later on.)
Neighborhood moms have some theories about the Owens family—namely that the Owens women participate in “pagan rituals,” “devil worship” and “ritual human disembodiment.” These fears don’t stop the moms from participating in a sort of exorcism later in the movie, though.
Song lyrics compare a person’s blood to holy wine.
While neither of the Owens sisters seems to have much of an issue with pre-martial relations, Gilly almost revels in promiscuity. Her relationship with her boyfriend, Jimmy, seems to be based around sexual experiences, and the audience gets a glimpse into that relationship.
Jimmy and Gillian passionately kiss, fall back onto a bed, grope each other, etc. While no explicit nudity is seen (other than a shirtless Jimmy) the intention of their intimacy is clear. Jimmy blindfolds Gillian as a precursor to an intimate moment.
Sex is implied in a later scene as well, once again accompanied by moving hands and passionate kissing. A woman dances seductively during several scenes and uses her beauty to try to distract multiple male characters.
We see shirtless male characters. Several female characters wear tight shirts, exposing cleavage and midriffs. A thin, lingerie-like nightgown is worn for an extended scene.
Several women gossip about the ability of some women to seduce married men, much to the dismay of those men’s wives. They warn each other to “hang on to your husbands” and discuss one character’s alleged breast tattoo.
The film includes multiple instances of sexual innuendo, often about women being too eager to sleep with men or not eager enough. Some characters discuss whether being a “slut” is a bad thing, and they also talk about a woman needing “a guy going through her.” A character reports that she and her lover stayed up all night “worshipping” each other. A male character reports that he is “very into sisters.”
There is an offhand mention of two little girls joining in a witches’ ritual that involves dancing naked under the moon. A little girl performs spell so that she’ll never fall in love; her sister says she can’t wait to fall in love.
Early in the film, Sally passionately kisses her husband. Later on, she talks about the love they shared when he was alive, noting that even years into their marriage, they couldn’t stop kissing each other.
Although Gillian loves Jimmy, it is clear is that she is afraid of him and that he is abusive. At one point, Jimmy offers to follow her into the bathroom, something she clearly isn’t comfortable with. He backs down after an awkward moment, claiming that he was just kidding. However, he clearly has trouble taking “no” as an answer, which results in Gilly drugging him frequently to get some sleep.
In a disturbing depiction of domestic violence, an inebriated man chokes his girlfriend in the backseat of a moving vehicle and attempts to brand her by heating up his ring with a cigarette lighter. The man holds her hostage with a gun as the driver of the car swerves frantically. We see that woman with a black eye, given to her by the same guy, in other scenes as well.
[Spoiler Warning] It should be noted that the abuser is eventually killed, and the Owens sisters spend much of the movie trying to hide his death and their guilt.
A man is hit and killed by a truck, supposedly a result of the Owens family curse. The curse has allegedly taken the life of every man who has loved an Owens woman for the better part of 200 years, although these deaths are not depicted. It is implied that Sally and Gillian’s mother took her own life after her husband’s untimely death.
A man dies when someone accidentally slips a lethal dose of belladonna into his drink. A witch uses magic to avoid being hung, slipping out of the noose as she steps off the gallows. Another witch uses magic to slap a woman in public. Someone hits a man in the head with a frying pan in self-defense, accidentally killing him. A man draws a gun on a few different characters. Someone gets burned by a silver star, the wound going deep into the flesh of his hand.
Sally and Gilly make a blood oath by slicing open their hands with a knife, drawing blood while they wince in pain.
The film brews up more profanity than one might expect, with a few s-words, 10 uses of “b–ch” and a couple uses of “d–n” as well. Other one-off profanities include “h—,” “b–tard,” “balls,” “slut” and “a–hole.” We also hear a few misuses of both God’s and Jesus’ names (the latter paired with “d–n”).
Multiple characters smoke frequently, especially Gillian, who seems to indulge in a cigarette in nearly every scene. At one point, Sally tells Gilly to smoke less, but the advice falls on deaf ears.
The Owens sisters hit the bottle pretty frequently as well, ranging from a swig of hard liquor to “midnight margaritas” with their aunts. The women are all drunk by the end of the “midnight margaritas” scene, and Sally complains about being hungover the next day.
A man drinks frequently and becomes violent as he does. Gillian confesses to putting a drug (belladonna) in Jimmy’s bourbon to put him asleep: Someone dies from an accidental overdose of the same drug. Multiple characters drink in a car, including the driver, in a tense scene. A spirit is magically tied to his drink of choice before his death, which is a bottle of tequila.
The ethics of the Owens sisters’ decisions are murky at best. They consistently lie and steal in order to cover up mistakes (often breaking the law), and that’s on top of all the promiscuity and witchcraft on display. This notion feels especially icky as Sally’s daughters, Antonia and Kylie, are exposed to witchy rituals and the like as well.
The people who live in Sally’s town aren’t kind to the Owens women. They gossip and spread rumors about the family, and they often treat the Owens women (even the Owens children) with contempt.
A man urinates on the side of the road in a drunken stupor.
There are clear reasons why Practical Magic has achieved cult status among longtime fans. For all its issues, it is a pretty-looking movie, and Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock give warm, believable performances as the Owens sisters.
That said, Practical Magic is a cinematic cauldron stuffed with enough content issues that its PG-13 rating seems a bit generous. Right off the bat, you’re dealing with (non-Satanic, pagan-derived) witchcraft, some profanity and lots of sexual innuendo. However, the film also showcases the grief associated with the death of a spouse alongside a disturbing tale of domestic abuse, without ever taking the time to dive into either topic in a productive way.
Sally gets a scene or two to handle the traumatic passing of her husband, but she moves on shockingly quickly after nothing more than some quality sister time and quite a few margaritas. Similarly, Gilly’s experience with Jimmy should be haunting, but instead, she seems almost unbothered by the ordeal.
It’s this same odd notion of conflicting tones that permeates the entire film. The script wants to comment on sisterhood, death, guilt and abuse, but it also wants to serve a fun Halloween romp that you can snuggle up in a blanket to enjoy each fall. It truly feels like a few movies of different ratings all blended into one like an Owens midnight margarita: One film is a crime thriller attempting to tackle the ethics of killing an abusive man, one is a story of a magical (albeit, witchy) childhood that leads to two separated sisters reuniting, and the final is an exorcism film that could fit as a spinoff to the Conjuring universe.
If that awkward mix sounds like it would leave the tone of the film spiraling around faster than a witch knocked off her broom, you’d be right. For those without a nostalgic attachment to the film, the result is hardly spellbinding—and it certainly won’t be a spooky fall watch for families, either.
Jonah Parker’s first interaction with Plugged In came when he was just five years old, after his parents read a review for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and deemed the content too intense for him. What started out as a contentious relationship between Jonah and a staff of reviewers who knew not of his existence would later turn into an appreciation for the site’s ability to present media content in a way that was accurate and fair. Jonah enjoys analyzing how our entertainment echoes the creativity of our Creator while finding glimpses of Biblical truths within every genre. He believes that Robert Pattinson’s Batmobile is the perfect mix of cool and practical.
