Practical Magic 2 Review: A Cozy, Flawed Return To The Owens Family

Table of Contents

Every fall, Meaghan rewatches Practical Magic. Every single year. It’s one of those movies you catch at exactly the right age, and it sticks to you like candle wax. As she put it, a whole generation of us watched it and thought;

I too would like to be a witch in a seaside town in Massachusetts.

Shirin came to it later, but she grew up on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, so the cozy, family-first witchiness was already in her blood.

So when Practical Magic 2 hit theaters, we went in nervous. There have been so many prequels, requels, and legacy sequels lately that Shirin admitted she walked in with “a level of fatigue” and expected very little. The surprise? We both had a genuinely good time. Is it perfect? No. But it’s a lot better than we feared.

Note
The following is an editorialized transcript of our weekly literary podcast. If you would like to listen to the podcast, click the play button above orlisten on your favorite platform with the links below.

Practical Magic 2 Is Based on Alice Hoffman’s The Book of Magic

If you only know the movies, here’s the quick version. Practical Magic started as a novel by Alice Hoffman, and she has since expanded the Owens family story with more books, including the prequel Magic Lessons. Practical Magic 2 is based on The Book of Magic, which is the official second book in the series.

And honestly, you can feel that there’s a book underneath it. Shirin said the film has “a clear, well-structured beginning, middle, and end,” and the plot holds together well. Meaghan agreed: it has an actual through line and doesn’t feel “tossed together.”

That mattered to us, because our biggest fear was the nostalgia trap. You know the one. Shirin described it perfectly: “Hey, remember your nostalgia? Let’s just give you your nostalgia” with the same storyline all over again. Instead, the sequel does what a sequel should do (at least in theory); it widens the backstory, raises the stakes, and gives the Owens family a bigger world to play in.

The Owens Curse Returns (Spoilers Ahead)

Fair warning: from here on, we’re getting into full spoilers. If you haven’t seen it yet, bookmark this and come back.

The film picks up years after the first one, and the news is not great. The Owens curse (anyone an Owens woman falls in love with dies) was never actually broken. Gary, the investigator Sally (Sandra Bullock) fell for in the first film, has died in between the two movies. If you were wondering why Aidan Quinn isn’t back, that’s why, and Meaghan pointed out that Gary dies between the books too. Our reaction was pretty much Shirin’s: “Oh, Gary. You didn’t get a chance, man.”

To protect her daughters from that heartbreak, Sally casts a spell that makes Kylie and Antonia forget they’re witches at all. We get the logic. We also think it’s a questionable plan. As Meaghan said, they’re still going to fall in love with people who keep dying, and they’re going to wonder why. Shirin’s take was even blunter:

I’m just gonna hope for the best. They’re definitely gonna be spinsters, right?

Fast forward, and Antonia is training to be a surgeon while Kylie is studying something with a lot of books (lit, maybe history). Shirin, who has a lit degree, had thoughts: “You either become a witch or a barista.”

Then the death beetle starts chirping. Fans of the first film will remember that sound; it means someone is about a week away from dying. This time it’s for Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest). Before she passes, Jet finds a text called the Book of the Raven, which hints the curse can be broken, and she leaves instructions for her sister Franny (Stockard Channing).

Meanwhile, Kylie has fallen hard for Gideon (Xolo Maridueña), a sweet guy who treats her well. Shirin found this part painfully relatable:

It’s really sad that all these women keep falling in love with these nontoxic men.

Once Kylie admits her feelings, Gideon is hit by a car and ends up in a coma. Kylie learns the truth about her family, and suddenly everyone is racing to find a way to end the curse once and for all.

We also had a question about the memory spell itself. Isn’t there a rule that magic bursts out of you if you don’t use it? Meaghan called it:

The law of magic, literally in everything ever.

Thornfield, Lee Pace, and the Owens Family History

Kylie heads to England first, and Sally and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) follow. They trace Maria Owens back to Thornfield, a small village in the countryside. There they meet Ian, a seer and practitioner played by Lee Pace, and yes, everybody was happy about that. Meaghan’s verdict: “No one’s ever upset to see Lee Pace.” Shirin loves that he takes quirky roles and gives them everything, like his very funny turn in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Because he’s so good, every choice feels like a good one for him.

Ian mostly helps with exposition, and the history he uncovers is dark. Maria Owens’s mother, Hannah, worked for the lord of the manor in Thornfield. The film suggests the relationship was forced. Hannah had a second child who was never claimed, and that line of the family still exists generations later.

This is where the plot lost us a little. Tom, a caretaker with a suspiciously kind smile, turns out to be from that other branch. We both clocked him right away. The minute he invited Kylie for tea, Meaghan knew he was lying. Her reasoning was simple. Kylie already has a nice, sweet guy, so Tom has to be faking it. Shirin nailed the rule:

In these movies, you’re either the love interest or the villain. That’s it.

Tom’s mother was mocked for believing she had powers, and he has become fixated on getting the magic he feels was stolen from his side of the family. Here’s what bugged us. The film says that branch never got any magic, but it’s not clear why. Did Hannah choose not to pass it down? Did it just skip that child? Shirin also asked a fair question: if Ian is openly magical and the town is tiny, why was Tom’s family ridiculed for talking about magic?

We honestly couldn’t answer either one. Shirin figured listeners were yelling “go read the book, you ding dongs“, and fair enough.

**How Practical Magic 2 Ends: Franny’s Sacrifice and a Broken Curse**

The family defeats Tom, and the curse is finally broken. The catch? Breaking it requires one of the witches to give up her life. Franny sees that it’s her time, and she goes to join Jet in the afterlife.

It was sweet, and it was sad. Meaghan was already upset that they killed off Dianne Wiest “right at the beginning of the movie,” so losing both aunts stung.

On the bright side, Gideon wakes up from his coma and marries Kylie. Ian and Sally get together too, and we’re begging the writers not to repeat history. “Don’t you dare kill him off screen in between movies,” Meaghan said. Shirin agreed: “We deserve better than that.“

Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and the Performances

With four original cast members back (Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Dianne Wiest, and Stockard Channing), you don’t need much nostalgia bait. The nostalgia is standing right there. The chemistry still works, and everyone slides back into their roles pretty easily.

That said, Meaghan wasn’t a fan of the forced awkward humor. There were too many moments of people stumbling and stuttering through uncomfortable conversations, and the scene where they meet Gideon had her “cringing sitting here.” Sally, in particular, gets awkward a lot.

Shirin felt Nicole Kidman’s performance came across as more natural, like she’d “been playing it this whole time.” With Sandra Bullock, she felt the dialogue was doing more of the emotional work than the facial expressions were. That ties into a bigger conversation online about how much actors’ faces actually move on screen these days. We want to be fair here.

This is a beauty standard pushed hard on women, and the industry and the audience both helped build it. As Meaghan put it, “I don’t think anybody can win.” It’s easier to notice next to Joey King (Kylie) and Maisie Williams (Antonia), whose performances show a lot more expression. And Dianne Wiest? She looks wonderful and completely natural.

The movie is also funny when it lands. Shirin loved the nineties-witch cottagecore look, especially when Gillian teases Sally about dressing like a witch in nineties garb. Our favorite line, though, came in an argument: Gillian tells Sally she’s “80% hate and 20% water,” basically “an angry cucumber.” Meaghan is officially stealing it.

If you and I got into a serious fight, this is what would be coming out.

What Worked and What Didn’t in Practical Magic 2

Starting with the good stuff. Shirin enjoyed Gillian’s character, the look of the film, the back-and-forth between the four returning stars, and a plot that felt fleshed out. Meaghan was on the same page. The costumes stay close to the original (she has a real soft spot for Sally’s wardrobe), and the aunts are fabulous every second they’re on screen. We both liked that the story leaves the house. If it hadn’t, Shirin said, it would have been “very copy-paste.”

Now the less good stuff. Shirin was not sold on Joey King and Maisie Williams, mostly because we barely got them. Two big names, and hardly any scenes together. Antonia gets left behind almost completely. The sister bond between Sally and Gillian is the heart of the first movie, and Kylie and Antonia never get anything close to it. Shirin said they felt like “lukewarm best friends more than sisters.” Think about it: there’s no way Gillian would let Sally go to England without her. Yet Antonia stays home and gets one phone call.

Meaghan felt that missing bond might be the film’s biggest failing, along with the over-the-top awkward jokes. And Shirin had one more complaint:

There was a severe lack of midnight margaritas in this one.

They show up at the very end, when they should have been in the middle, and more than once.

So does Practical Magic 2 live up to the original? No. But we never expected it to. You can’t recapture something you already had once, and that’s okay. With no more books to adapt (and no more aunts), we’re curious whether a third film happens at all. Maybe Sally and Gillian are the aunts now.

For now, it was cozy, it was spooky, and Shirin “didn’t hate it.” It’s a good little start to spooky season.