52 Films by Women Vol 10. 38. PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 (Director: Susanne Bier)

 

Pictured: Sally Owens (Nicole Kidman, left) and her older sister Gillian (Sandra Bullock, right) reunited for the sequel, 'Practical Magic 2', adapted from Alice Hoffman's 2021 novel, 'The Book of Magic' by Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel and directed by Susanne Bier. Still courtesy of Warner Bros.

For those who remember Danish director Susanne Bier as the woman who, working with writer Anders Thomas Jensen, engaged audiences with the moral dramas Open Hearts, Brothers and A Second Chance, that auteur is entirely absent from her sequel Practical Magic 2, an adaptation of Alice Hoffman’s 2021 novel, ‘The Book of Magic’, the fourth and final book of her ‘Practical Magic’ series. Admittedly, there is a character in a coma brought about entirely by a young woman’s love, but the Susanne Bier of Dogme 95 would have focussed on whether the woman, witch’s daughter Kylie Owens (Joey King) should release the comatose Gideon (Xolo Maridueña) of his love for her in order that he may live. This after all is the logic of a curse that all those who fall for a member of the Owens family are fated to die.

Bier is in a bind. Not only does her film, scripted by Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, have to respect Hoffman’s novel, but it also has to satisfy fans of the 1998 film, Practical Magic, which paired Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman for the first time, as siblings Gillian and Sally Owens. When that film was released, Bullock was the bigger box office draw, having headlined movies such as Speed, While You Were Sleeping and A Time To Kill. It would take an English accent and a fake nose for Kidman to eclipse her, winning the Best Actress Oscar in 2003 as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (Harvey Weinstein undoubtedly helped). Bullock eventually caught up, winning the Best Actress Oscar herself in 2010 for The Blind Side but in the late 2010s put her career on hold to care for her sick partner, photographer Bryan Randall, appearing in only four films between 2019 and 2026. In the meantime, Kidman has barely been off our screens large and small. Their performance styles contrast sharply with one another. Bullock is tentative, rigid and lacking in spontaneity; Kidman is loose and goofy, whether pulling down her co-star’s pyjama bottoms or putting on an English accent for fun and going off for ‘Gin in a tin’. Gillian Owens might lecture her younger sister, but the film would be a lot less fun if Sally, who has totally embraced not falling in love – there are unkind words for that - was not around.

Pictured: Antonia Owens (Maisie Williams, left) comforts her younger sister Kylie (Joey King, right) in a scene from the sequel, 'Practical Magic 2', directed by Susanne Bier. Still courtesy of Warner Bros.

The film is less of a ‘motion picture event’ than a title in a release schedule; intellectual property exhumed to appeal to those who half-remember the original. The 1998 film, running at 104 minutes, was a choppy, sloppy piece of work, revolving around Sally’s abusive lover, Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), who is killed – accidentally – and whose body is buried in the rose garden. His ghostly presence reasserts itself but is vanquished during a community Tupperware party in which women assemble in a circle and take part in a ceremony with cake. The original film showcased practical effects, done in camera, not added afterwards. Hoffman’s version of magic veers away from Satan and absolute evil. It involves lighting candles by themselves, stirring a cup of liquid without using one’s hands and floating down from a roof holding an umbrella like Mary Poppins, all of which are reprised in the sequel. Strangely it does not involve assisting with heavy luggage. There is a running joke in Practical Magic 2 in which Sally drags two large suitcases up several flights of stairs, while Gillian travels somewhat lighter.

The sequel sticks to the opening of Hoffman’s novel with the sound of a death beetle signalling the imminent death of Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest), though not before she recovers a book from the library where Gillian works. You may ask why Gillian doesn’t still manage the herbal remedy shop featured in the 1998 film. Well, we’ve skipped two novels. Aunt Jet’s purloined book contains the means by which the Owens’ curse might be lifted, though its pages are sealed tighter than the Epstein Files. Jet passes after her birthday party, which is the best way to go. There is the odd spectacle of watching Wiest and Stockard Channing, the latter reprising her role as Aunt Franny, having aged naturally, while Bullock and Kidman have had facial attention. Looking at Gillian, I was fleetingly reminded of the late Michael Jackson in his skin-whitened, facially modified ‘Invincible’ phase and once I noticed the resemblance between Jackson and Bullock, I couldn’t un-see it. As a result, I couldn’t relate to Gillian as an empathetic character, rather as someone whose final album cost $30 million to produce. If only Hollywood would cast actresses who aged according to nature, augmented only by exfoliation.

Pictured: 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something alcoholic this way comes.' Sisters Gillian (Sandra Bullock, centre) and Sally (Nicole Kidman, right) practice hands-off witchcraft in the amiable sequel, 'Practical Magic 2', directed by Susanne Bier. Still courtesy of Warner Bros.

Gillian is desperate to protect her two daughters, Kylie and Antonia (the latter played by Maisie Williams) from the curse. Antonia works in a hospital while Kylie is a student, whose boyfriend, the aforementioned Gideon, carries her books. Why all her textbooks couldn’t be available on a single Kindle bemused me somewhat, but Practical Magic 2 is a throwback, down to Jet giving away stolen library books as farewell presents (leaving the recipients with a fine – nice). Gideon’s bicycle is hit by a truck, and Kylie is desperate to save him, even if it means travelling to the UK to visit the birthplace of the original witch, Hannah Owens.

Searching for her daughter, Gillian is told to track down Professor Ian Wright (Lee Pace). At this point, I – and any self-respecting fan of Arsenal Football Club – could not take the film seriously. Wright is a legend of the game and continues in a career as a football pundit. The more Gillian and Sally say the name ‘Ian Wright’, the more I felt a boundary had been crossed. Did someone put the filmmakers up to this? Could Bier be a secret Gooner? Travelling together – because Sally doesn’t have a job and there would not be a movie without the sisters – they break into the Professor’s flat (the English don’t say ‘Apartment’) and discover the heavily tattooed Ian Wright (who knew) lying naked in a catatonic state. They wake him up. He turns out to reveal that a former student, Tom Lockland (Solly McLeod) has turned to evil and has stolen one of his texts, an ancient manuscript that is more like a pamphlet. Why do all these books in this movie have to be stolen? They can just be borrowed.

Not only did I object to the use of ‘Ian Wright’. I could not accept the spelling of Lockland in the film. As any English person will tell you, it’s ‘Laughland’. Of course, that reads ‘Laugh land’, so no American would take that seriously. Practical Magic 2 requires suspension of both disbelief and orthography.

Tom Lockland takes Kylie to some ruins (oh yeah?). It is up to the Owens sisters and Professor Wright, who at one point is knocked out with a frying pan, Eating Raoul-style, to save him. Both Kylie and Gillian and Sally travel on a train, the like of which does not commercially operate in 21^st Century Britain. It might just as well have been the Hogwarts Express. At one point, Professor Wright talks about the great romances ‘Ross and Rachel, Sam and Molly’ before explaining that the latter featured in the film, Ghost, released by Paramount Pictures. Practical Magic 2, released by Warner Bros., anticipates (cynically perhaps), the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros, the latter to be subsumed into the former, ‘Ross and Rachel’ featuring in the Warner Bros produced sitcom, Friends. If Ian Wright doesn’t take you out of the movie, the reference to Ghost will.

There is some moderately amusing dialogue – Sally loves mentioning ‘cup of tea’ – as well as Gillian being seduced by Professor Wright who introduces her to English custard. It is quite difficult to completely dismiss the film, which concludes with some fan service (‘Midnight Margaritas’). As Harry Nilsson’s song ‘Coconut’ is played, Sally explains that ‘lime and coconut is technically a pina colada’, an example of the film trying to be smart. Practical Magic 2 has so far grossed $92 million worldwide in its first nineteen days of release (to 27 September 2026). It may not be a qualified hit, but it improves slightly on its predecessor.

Reviewed at Cineworld Dover, Kent, Southern England, Thursday 24 September 2026, 16:50 screening.