Practical Magic

There’s somethings though I know for certain. Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary near your garden gate, plant lavender for luck, and fall in love whenever you can.

This summer, I posted one of my favorite quotes from Practical Magic on my Instagram account, and I was honored that Alice Hoffman, the author of the book the film is based on, shared it on her Instagram story. I knew after that I wanted to cover the film on Movie Mondays. I’ve always loved witch films. From Disney movies like Halloweentown, Twitches, and Hocus Pocus to The Craft, Teen Witch, and even The Wizard of Oz. I especially love the films in which witches are portrayed as empowering instead of as evil. That’s one of the things I love most about Practical Magic and one of the main topics I’m excited to write about this week.

Women in Witch Films

Practical Magic. 1998. Warner Bros.

Practical Magic begins with an introduction to the Owens lineage, beginning with Maria Owens, a witch who was nearly executed but escaped. Violence against women in films is a common concern among movie fans because it’s normalized too often, especially in horror. Even Hocus Pocus, a PG film, sees the three main witches hung in its opening sequence. I appreciate that Practical Magic went in a different direction, and we actually see Maria survive because of her magic. This sets the tone for the film as we instantly know witches will not be painted in a negative light, but instead, they will be celebrated for their powers.

Unfortunately, the characters do face a lot of shame later on. As children, Sally and Gillian are taunted by the children in their neighborhood because they’re witches. Flash forward, and Sally’s daughters, Kylie and Antonia, are also taunted by other children. Like a lot of aspects of the film, this feels like a clear metaphor for generational trauma. Something that happened to Maria then happened to Sally and later happened to Kylie and Antonia. 

“They feared her because she had a gift. A power that has been passed on to you children. She had the gift of magic,”-Practical Magic.

In adulthood, Sally’s shamed at her daughters’ school by the other mothers because she’s a witch. This worsens when Gillian shows up, and they comment on her tattoos and promiscuity. The shame continues throughout the film until the women are able to fully accept themselves and break the family curse–a curse that causes any man they fall in love with to die. In the end, the women who once judged Sally and Gillian actually come together to help them. When Gillian is possessed by the ghost of her abusive partner, Jimmy, the women form a coven with the family to save Gillian and end the family curse.

Bond Between Witches

Practical Magic. 1998. Warner Bros.

One of the strongest aspects of Practical Magic is the bond between the witches: Sally and Gillian, Sally and her daughters, and Sally and Gillian with their aunts. Gillian runs off with a man she’s in love with as a teenager, but even when she and Sally are far away, they stay connected through writing each other letters and through the scars on their hands from the blood spell they made the night Gillian left.

When Sally’s husband, Michael, dies, Gillian finally returns home because even though she wants to get away from her hometown, she can’t bear letting her sister go through such a tragedy on her own. Later in the film, when Gillian is possessed and the coven has to help her,  Sally invites her daughters to join in, though she initially didn’t want them practicing magic. The most powerful part comes when Sally and Gillian perform the same blood spell from when they were teenagers. This action, out of all, seems to be the one to free Gillian. Like many others who love Practical Magic, the message of female camaraderie and sisterhood really hits home and is the main reason I love the film so much.

The Deathwatch Beetle

Practical Magic. 1998. Warner Bros.

At the core of Practical Magic is the deadly omen that keeps the female characters from true love and happiness. The deathwatch beetle is the insect that shows up right before a man that a woman from the Owens family loves dies. To me, the beetle is a metaphor for generational trauma. The story begins when Maria Owens, after escaping execution, awaits the return of her baby’s father, only for him to never come back to her. The abandonment causes her so much pain that she curses her lineage, making it so any man the women in her family fall in love with will die after the appearance of the deathwatch beetle. 

This might sound like an evil curse, but Maria was only trying to protect herself and her descendants. The curse was revenge on the man who left her, but it was also a way for her never to get hurt again. Knowing any man she fell in love with would die would prevent her and all the women who came after her from wanting to fall in love. Therefore, they would never end up in agony like she did. There is a clear connection between this story and the real world. People cope with pain in various ways, but one of them is to shut out the world to avoid feeling any pain at all.

“My darling girl, when are you going to understand that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage,”-Frances, Practical Magic.

As children, Sally and Gillian’s father died from the curse, and later, their mother died from a broken heart. When they go to live with their aunts, they witness them doing a love spell on a woman who is desperately in love with a married man. However, the events affect the sisters in different ways. While Sally swears she’ll never fall in love, Gillian says she can’t wait to. This affects them into adulthood as Sally isn’t able to let anyone in, and Gillian jumps from one relationship to the next, subconsciously rejecting any commitment to a genuinely good man.

Sally ends up marrying a man named Michael, but we learn that the only reason she is able to fall in love is because her aunts put a love spell on her so she can be happy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t break the curse. When the death beetle shows up in Sally’s home, she tries desperately to crush it, but no matter what she does, she can’t catch it, and Michael is struck by a car, resulting in his death. To me, this scene parallels the way we try to run from our past and our problems instead of facing them head-on. Sally isn’t willing to face the real issue–the shame she feels about being a witch and her fear of loss–and instead thinks she can somehow outsmart the beetle. Ultimately, she can not.

Gillian, on the other hand, ends up in an abusive relationship with Jimmy. This is a sensitive subject, but it's also a result of her upbringing. She never witnessed a healthy relationship, and her example of true love came from a woman who yearned for a man who she was having an affair with. It's also a result of her own fear of losing the man she loves. If Gillian were to settle down with a nice man, he would die. Instead, she ends up with an awful man, so when he does end up dying–Sally accidentally kills him–she's not upset.

It's not until the end of the film that they're able to break the death beetle curse during the exorcism. Jimmy plays a huge role in this as he represents evil and darkness. He is like a personification of the death beetle and the curse. However, the curse was never the problem to begin with. The problem was the witches believed so deeply in the curse, and they feared it even more. Worst of all, they never faced it but continued to run from it. As we know, in real life, that will get you nowhere. The family lived in fear of getting hurt. They carried the trauma from Maria all the way down into the present day. I've seen many modern people taking on the responsibility of healing their family's trauma, and that's exactly what Sally and Gillian have to do in Practical Magic.

When they accepted and embraced their powers, the world around them changed. They stopped living in fear because they realized the power was within them all along. I love the ending scene when the family dresses in witch costumes and dances on the roof on Halloween night while their neighbors cheer them on from below. Sally also finds new love in the end with Detective Gary, who was originally sent to investigate Jimmy's disappearance. However, Gary was actually a man Sally unintentionally willed into her life. As a child, she dreamed him up–giving him one green eye and one blue eye–assuming it was impossible for him to actually exist. If he didn't exist, she couldn't actually fall in love with him, and she couldn't get hurt. However, her spell worked, and in the end, after defeating the curse, she chooses to be with him without the fear of losing him.

My favorite part of the exorcism scene is when we see a flash of Maria. She looks happier than she did earlier in the movie, and it's clear that through the ceremony, the witches not only freed themselves but also healed their entire lineage. Practical Magic is a fun witch movie, but it is also so much more than that. It is a film about generational trauma and how freeing it is to cut the chords. I am forever grateful for this film and Alice Hoffman for originating the story.