Since you are reading this in The Future, I cannot tell what has become of us all.
Maybe, right now, you are standing in a circle with Stockard Channing and Sandra Bullock chanting a mantra in your livingroom to bring your sister back to life. Perhaps you are watching in horror as hot ER actor Goran Višnjić claws his way up from beneath the Earth with murderous eyes. “Blood on the moon” you scream to no one in particular as the cat, in terror, races beneath the kitchen table.
That’s right, spruce up your broomsticks and oil your frogs, it’s about to get spooky and slimy again, as the Owens sisters fly back into our lives.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that the very same week – the week of the Strawberry Moon – the most important cultural revival of our generation was announced. Practical Magic Two.
At the age of 11, it seemed destined that witches would be a healing comfort for me. We had recently moved to the remote countryside and both occupations of witch and writer felt right.
Each involved a brave dedication to conjuring something of the mundane moments in our lives and holding them up against, say, a blood moon and watching as they catch fire and reshape into a new narrative, a fresh story. This kind of becoming comes only from meeting the immediate lived-in moment with cherished memories of the past and wishing for something new beyond it. Narrative, and the control of it, was in the hands of whomever was moved enough to look beyond themselves and connect to the things that matter: community, family and humanity. That, I think, is why more conventional characters hold so much fear about the witches – everyone wants control under a misguided idea that it will save them from the ills of life but ill life still happens.
My favourite line in the movie is delivered by Stockard Channing’s character, Aunt Frances, to her niece, Sally, aka Sandra Bullock, who is dressed just nerdily enough to conjure the image of a predestined Ms Congeniality to a trained eye. “All I want is a normal life,” Sally says while dressed in what can only be described as the greatest attempt at 1990s normcore possible. She is dedicated to normality, in case you didn’t get it.
Channing, on the other hand, is wearing a giant floppy hat with a Victorian dress and carrying a parasol. Her reply is the stuff of legends. “My darling girl, when are you going to understand that being normal is hardly a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.”
This perhaps was what appealed to me most.
Growing up I always felt different and, much like the witches, I was dealing with life and death decisions from an early age, hoisted upon me was the responsibility of power, of healing and of hope. It’s a lot to hold and to believe that there is some kind of way, a sacred methodology to counter life’s unexpected twists – frankly, it was a health benefit. And as if dictated by fate, I too had an aunt called Frances. The outfits – long, tight-fitted skirts with cami tops and cardigans – were available in Pennys... it was practically magic.
After Aunt Frances’s famous line in the movie, Aunt Jet, played by Diane West, points out the secret machinations of the villagers. She literally points at each person in the street calling out their flawed selves – Mother is mothering.
And I felt a faint echo of familiarity between the goings on of the small community of Maria’s Island, Massachusetts, and my hometown of Newbridge, Co Kildare.
When Practical Magic Two was announced, the YouTuber Graeme O’Neill called the first movie a “comedy drama romance fantasy, one of the misfires of her [Bullock’s] career”. It was the box office income he had an issue with – Practical Magic made $68 million (€63 million) against its budget of $75 million.
But to think this matters is to miss what the movie is all about. This story of two women, their bond stronger than anything that crosses their path, holds true throughout the movie, from the childhood taunting of “Witch, witch, you’re a bitch” to the perils of childhood, the terrors of intimate partner violence and the truth of what happens when a community binds together.
Practical Magic is a celebration of love.
The love of sisterhood, familial love, romantic love, auntie love and all the things we will do to get it. In the marketplace it is love at first sight when Sally races into the arms of her man, wraps her legs around his waist and they share a passionate kiss accompanied by one of the greatest snogging soundtracks of the 1990s, This Kiss, by Faith Hill. This set the bar extremely high for two 11 year olds watching in 1998.
I was lucky to see the movie for the first time with my cousin, who has strawberry blonde hair, just like Nicole Kidman. In terms of representation in 1998, this was extremely important. It was before Amy Adams or Jessica Chastain and Lindsay Lohan had arrived on the scene. Before the Halliwell sisters chanted “The power of three will set us free.” Before Salem Saberhagen was hell bent on world domination, and before a red-headed Willow met Tara, we had the Owens Sisters.
In the way writing workshops can manifest energy and a clear narrative amid the uncertainties of life, the magic of the movie is that all of us are powerful beyond measure through the power of love and community.
It taught me some other things too: always throw spilt salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender for luck and, most importantly, fall in love whenever you can.