Practical Magic

In a small Massachusetts town, the Owens family have been regarded with suspicion for over 300 years due to their ancestor Maria Owens, who survived an attempted execution for witchcraft. Heartbroken when the father of her unborn child never returned to her, Maria Owens cast a spell to prevent herself from ever falling in love again. The spell developed into a curse upon Maria's descendants, dooming any man an Owens woman loves.

In the present day, Gillian and Sally Owens are taken in by their aunts Frances and Jet after both their parents succumb to the Owens curse. As children, Sally and Gillian are bullied and isolated by the town's schoolchildren. After witnessing their aunts cast a love spell for a woman obsessed with her beloved, Sally casts a spell on herself to insure she will only fall in love with a man who possesses certain impossible traits, with the goal that she will never fall in love. Meanwhile Gillian, witnessing the same incident, cannot wait to fall in love. When the girls are teens, Gillian elopes with her boyfriend and leaves for Los Angeles. Before Gillian departs, she and Sally make a blood spell to always be faithful to one another.

Gillian spends the next decade moving from relationship to relationship across the country, while back in Massachusetts, Sally meets and marries a man named Michael. The two have two young daughters, Kylie and Antonia. Michael is killed after being hit by a truck. Sally and her daughters return to live with the aunts. Realizing that the aunts cast a love spell on her in secret so that she could marry and be happy, Sally declares that the aunts will never teach her daughters magic.

Unexpectedly, Gillian calls Sally in the middle of the night from Arizona, telling Sally she has become involved with a dangerously abusive man named Jimmy Angelov. When Sally arrives to rescue her sister, Jimmy holds them both hostage in his car. Sally puts belladonna into Jimmy's tequila in order to sedate him, but appears to inadvertently kill him instead. The sisters take his body back to the aunts' house, where they attempt to resurrect him using a forbidden spell, which causes him to return and attack Gillian. Sally kills him again, and the sisters bury his remains in the garden. State investigator Gary Hallett arrives from Tucson, Arizona in search of Jimmy, who is also a serial killer. Sally breaks down and goes to confess to Gary, only to realize he is the impossible man from her childhood love spell. Unable to deny their attraction, they kiss.

Returning home, Sally discovers that Jimmy's spirit has possessed Gillian's body. Gary sees Jimmy's spirit emerge. Jimmy attempts to possess Gary, only to be turned aside by his silver badge. Sally tells Gary that he is there because of her spell, that the feelings they have for each other are not real, and that the family curse will kill him if they pursue a relationship. Gary replies that curses only work if one believes in them, before returning to Tucson.

Jimmy possesses Gillian again and attempts to kill Sally before Frances and Jet return. Sally, realizing she must embrace magic to save her sister, asks the aid of the townswomen and they form a coven to exorcise Jimmy's spirit. They are able to break the Owens curse, exorcising Jimmy's spirit and allowing the coven to exile him permanently. In Tucson, Gary clears the sisters of any suspicion in Jimmy's case and returns to Massachusetts to be with Sally. The Owens women are finally welcomed into the community by the townsfolk, who now accept them as witches.

• Sandra Bullock as Sally Owens, a witch who becomes widowed after the Owens curse kills her husband.
  • Camilla Belle as young Sally Owens
• Nicole Kidman as Gillian Owens, Sally's sister, who grows restless with her family's estrangement in their small town, leaves, and becomes the victim of an abusive relationship.
  • Lora Anne Criswell as young Gillian Owens
• Goran Visnjic as James "Jimmy" Angelov, Gillian's lover, who becomes abusive and kidnaps the sisters, and is killed by them, twice, in self-defense.
• Stockard Channing as Aunt Frances Owens, aunt of Sally and Gillian, who tends to be direct, assertive, and salty.
• Dianne Wiest as Aunt Bridget 'Jet' Owens, aunt of Sally and Gillian, who is tenderhearted and gentle.
• Aidan Quinn as Investigator Gary Hallet, from Tucson, Arizona, who investigates Sally and Gillian in the disappearance of Jimmy Angelov and falls in love with Sally.
• Caprice Benedetti as Maria Owens, the first witch in the Owens family.
• Evan Rachel Wood as Kylie Owens, Sally's elder daughter, who lives with her mother and maternal great-aunts after the death of her father, Michael. She looks and acts a lot like her Aunt Gillian.
• Alexandra Artrip as Antonia Owens, Sally's younger daughter, who also lives with her mother and maternal great-aunts after the death of her father, Michael. She looks a lot like her mother.
• Mark Feuerstein as Michael, Sally Owens' mortal husband and the late father of Kylie and Antonia Owens. He is a victim of his witch wife's family curse, which results in his untimely death when their daughters are young.
• Peter Shaw as Jack, Sally and Gillian's father, who died from the Owens curse when they were children.
• Caralyn Kozlowski as Regina Owens, Sally and Gillian's mother, who died of a broken heart after losing her husband to the Owens curse.
• Chloe Webb as Carla, a good friend of Sally's, who works at her shop.
• Lucinda Jenney as Sara, one of the town women, who initially fears the Owens but later responds to Sally's call for help.
• Margo Martindale as Linda Bennett, another friend of Sally's who also works at her shop.
• Martha Gehman as Patty, one of the town women who responds to Sally's call for help.

Practical Magic was filmed in part on an artificial set in California. Because the film's producers decided the house was a big part of the depiction of the Owens culture, a house to accurately represent that vision was built on San Juan Island in the state of Washington.[7] While much of the set from California was brought to that location and placed inside the house, it took nearly a year to perfect the image of the house and the interior.[8] The house, actually only a shell with nothing inside, was built only for this filming and was torn down after filming was completed. The small town scenes were filmed in downtown Coupeville, Washington, a Victorian-era seaside port town located on the south side of Penn Cove on Whidbey Island.[9]

According to Sandra Bullock in the DVD commentary, while filming the scene where the Owens women are drunk and slinging insults, the actresses actually got drunk on very bad tequila brought by Kidman. The cast further stated in the film's commentary that they felt supernatural elements of the house started to affect them. Both the cast and crew claimed they heard supernatural noises while filming the coven scene at the end of the film. For the final scene with all of the townspeople at the Owens home, the entire population of the town where filming took place was invited to show up in costume and appear as townsfolk.[10]

Practical Magic
Photo by Suzanne Tenner
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released	October 6, 1998 (original pressing)
Recorded	August 15–16, 1998, Abbey Road Studios (Michael Nyman tracks)
Genre	Soundtrack, pop, minimalism, orchestral
Length	56:58 (Nyman pressing); 51:46 (Silvestri pressing)
Language	English
Label	Reprise/WEA
Producer	Danny Bramson, Sandra Bullock
Michael Nyman chronology
Strong on Oaks, Strong on the Causes of Oaks (1998) Practical Magic (1998) Ravenous (1999)
Alan Silvestri chronology
The Parent Trap (1998) Practical Magic (1998) Stuart Little (1999)

Composer Michael Nyman's score to the movie was abruptly replaced with music by Alan Silvestri for the theatrical release. This last-minute change resulted in the release of two soundtracks, although as primarily a compilation album only the two tracks of newly created material were changed. A 50-track demo (the last two tracks being "Convening the Coven" and "Maria Owens") of Nyman's score has been circulating among fans as a bootleg. The complete Nyman score runs 62:30 and contains music that would later appear, in altered form, in Ravenous and The Actors, as well as a bit of his stepwise chord progression theme from Out of the Ruins/String Quartet No. 3/Carrington/The End of the Affair/The Claim. "Convening the Coven", though not "Maria Owens," was subsequently reissued on The Very Best of Michael Nyman: Film Music 1980–2001, and music that uses material related to this piece has not been used elsewhere. "Convening the Coven" became "City of Turin" on The Glare.

Singer Stevie Nicks headlined the soundtrack's published advertisements, promoting her song "If You Ever Did Believe" and a new recording of her song "Crystal," both featuring Sheryl Crow on back-up vocals.

Track listing

1. "If You Ever Did Believe" – Stevie Nicks
2. "This Kiss" – Faith Hill
3. "Got to Give It Up (Pt.1)" – Marvin Gaye
4. "Is This Real?" – Lisa Hall
5. "Black Eyed Dog" – Nick Drake
6. "A Case of You" – Joni Mitchell
7. "Nowhere and Everywhere" – Michelle Lewis
8. "Always on My Mind" – Elvis Presley
9. "Everywhere" – Bran Van 3000
10. "Coconut" – Harry Nilsson
11. "Crystal" – Stevie Nicks
12. "Practical Magic" – Alan Silvestri / "Convening the Coven" – The Michael Nyman Orchestra
13. "Amas Veritas" – Alan Silvestri / "Maria Owens" – The Michael Nyman Orchestra

In 2004, Warner Bros. and CBS produced Sudbury, a television pilot written by Becky Hartman Edwards and directed by Bryan Spicer starring Kim Delaney in the role played by Bullock in the film and Jeri Ryan in the role played by Kidman. The series, named for the Sudbury, Massachusetts location of the novel and film, was not picked up.

In 2010, Warner Bros. and ABC Family attempted to develop a prequel television series.[15]

• List of ghost films

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