A few years ago, a friend and I walked to several video stores in the West Village looking for a copy of Practical Magic. The first video attendant actually tried to look for a DVD for us. At the second store, they laughed in our faces. Another store had no idea what we were even talking about.
Practical Magic is the pinnacle of ’90s Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. They are seriously stunning. Their hair is perfect and makes me seethe with envy, even when they have it in pigtails. It’s also set in one of the most amazing house sets that I still want to live in. Also it’s got witches, which were so hot in the ’90s.
If you have no idea what the story or plot is, it’s about witches who are sisters and are cursed to not have love, or to have their loved ones die, so the wild sister Gillian (Nicole Kidman) lives fast and loose, while Sally (Sandra Bullock) sees herself widowed with some daughters to raise because this is a fun movie about romance and lady power. Sally eventually has to come rescue Gillian from an abusive boyfriend, whom they accidentally kill and who eventually possesses Gillian. There’s also a subplot about Sally dreaming up a perfect man as a kid, and him manifesting in the form of the police officer sent to investigate Gillian’s boyfriend’s disappearance. But truly everything you need to know about this movie can be summed up by this scene:
I mean if that’s not a selling point, I don’t know what is. If ever you were thinking, “Man, I want to live life like the witches from The Craft but I also want something that says ‘suburban mom stereotype,'” don’t worry, Practical Magic is here for all your late ’90s inspired style tips.
This is how you know Gillian is the bad girl:
Conversely, this is how you know Sally is the nice, earth mother type:
This is how you know it’s the ’90s:
The truest fashion stars of this movie are of course, the aunts, who are of an indeterminate age. Their outfits give absolutely no clue.
Of course no movie about witches could ever end without the traditional witch outfit (which actually, a lot of movies have done fine without, including The Craft). So in closing, here are Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock smirking in their closing traditional witch dresses and hats prior to jumping off the roof.
Practical Magic is on Netflix Instant so you too can sit and debate the merits of Aidan Quinn versus the first husband (YES I KNOW HE DIES BUT HE WAS GREAT) and also wondering if Sally’s dream man list was really that hard to find. I mean, I can’t flip a pancake to save my life, but surely more people can do that than I think, right?
4 replies on “Movie Looks: Practical Magic”
At some point I’ll master that “blow on a candle to light it” trick……
Stockard Channing’s big floppy hat is INCREDIBLE though, amirite? I want to snatch it off her head and wear it to the beach.
HER WHOLE LOOK IS BEACH APPROPRIATE. THIS IS ALL CAPS BECAUSE I FEEL SO PASSIONATELY ABOUT STOCKARD CHANNING’S LOOKS.
This is one of the movies in which Nicole Kidman just looks to be having so_much_fun all the time, which I love to see in an actor. And she was ginger, and wild and daring and oh gosh, be still my teen/child heart.