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Practical Magic (1998) |
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| Sandra Bullock and Nicole
Kidman bring a sparkling screen magic to this romantic comedy, adapted
from Alice Hoffman's best seller and directed by Griffin Dunne.
They play Sally and Gillian Owens, sisters hexed by a centuries-old curse... all the men they fall in love with are doomed to an untimely death, and for whom falling in love is the trickiest spell of all. They have to cope with a witches' brew of events involving a possible love-match for one, a sadistic Transylvanian lover for the other, and they need to resume the age old witchcraft taught by two doting Owens aunts. Sit for a spell and enjoy! Actor Griffin Dunne improves a bit on his first film as a director, Addicted to Love, with this drama-comedy about a family of witches. Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock play spell-casting sisters of different temperaments: the former is a high-living, free-spirited sort, while Bullock's character is a homebody who can't get around a family curse that kills the men in their lives. A widowed single mom, Bullock gets into a jam with an abusive Bulgarian (Goran Visnjic) and is helped out by her sibling, but the result brings a good-looking, warm, inquisitive cop (Aidan Quinn) into their lives. The film has a variety of tonal changes--cute, scary, glum--that Dunne can't always effectively juggle. But the female-centric, celebratory nature of the film (the fantasies, the sharing, the witchy bonds) is infectious, and supporting roles by Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as Kidman and Bullock's magical aunts are a lot of fun. --Tom Keogh |