Practical Magic

Directed by Griffin Dunne
1998, Warner Bros. Pictures
1 hour, 44 minutes

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

The problem with cult followings for bad movies is that the movie still ends up being bad—even if there happens to be people who enjoy the dysfunction. Practical Magic falls into this category of film to me, being similar to something like The Room or Batman & Robin. The main difference between Practical Magic and these other movies is that Practical Magic is marketed towards women, centres themes which appeal to women, and its genres—cottagecore, witches, sisterhood—are popular among women.

Normally, I would put more weight on a movie’s attempts at representing minority groups. However, I don’t think Practical Magic is very good at representing anything except bad cinema. Not only is the underlying script terrible, but everything from the direction to the cinematography and the editing are subpar. It’s not even that the movie is bad in a fun way—it’s just confusing, boring, and frankly embarrassing to sit through.

While it’s true that the niche which Practical Magic fills is difficult to fill, there are plenty examples of better movies and TV shows which tackle the same themes or share genres with the film. Kiki's Delivery Service is a coming-of-age romance which is all about witches. The Jessica Jones TV series deals with abuse, sexual assault, and power dynamics. Most adaptions of Jane Austen’s books scratch the cottagecore itch. And finally, Lilo & Stitch is a heartbreakingly great movie about sisterhood.

I know that movies marketed toward women are few and far between, and that it’s also okay for media about underrepresented groups to be bad. Not every film needs to be a masterpiece. However, I don’t think we should be okay with what is obviously bad cinema for the sake of representation, or to fill a niche for which, evidently, a lot of people yearn. Practical Magic was a slog to get through, and it makes anything which resembles it bad by comparison. We can—and should—do better by the witchy-cottagcore-feminist dark comedy genre, and I hope we can one day see a movie which fulfills the promise Practical Magic failed to deliver on.