Practical Magic is still bewitching

Every generation of women has its witch. For my grandmother, it was the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, with her striped stockings and flying monkeys. For my mother, a child of the sixties, it was the villainous Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf, who zoomed around on a rocket-powered broom.

My own witches were far less frightening. The Owens sisters of Practical Magic (played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman) weren’t green and warty, nor cackling and cruel. They were stylish and free-spirited. The film follows the sister witches as they navigate a deadly family curse that dooms any man they fall in love with. I must have rewatched it every year since it was released in 1998.

Practical Magic 2 picks up 25 years later. Sally Owens (Bullock) has attempted to hide her family’s witchcraft from her now-grown daughters, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams). But when the ancestral love curse strikes again, she flees to England in search of a cure.

The sequel doubles down on the core appeal of the original film. As our reviewer puts it: “It is a story about witches, but really it’s about the power of the feminine: readdressing ancient wrongs, recognising the nurturers who came before, believing in ourselves. Men come and go, relationships die, but the women in your life are........

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