Practical Magic 2 and What’s Making Us Happy

Pop Culture Happy Hour

The Pop Culture Happy Hour team discusses Practical Magic 2, a sequel to the 1998 film about cursed sisters played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. The new

Key takeaways

• Practical Magic 2 leans heavily on nostalgia and star chemistry between Bullock and Kidman, which many found charming despite narrative flaws.
• The film struggles with tonal balance, blending comedy, drama, and supernatural elements without fully committing to any one genre.

Main topics

• Practical Magic 2 movie review
• Nostalgia and sequel culture in pop culture

Notable quotes

"You ignore your heritage at your peril."

"I was not feeling optimistic about the rest of the movie. But at a certain point, it did turn over... What an outstanding time."

Conclusion

While Practical Magic 2 isn't a perfect film, its charm lies in the chemistry between its leads and its

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) This is Ira Glass. On This American Life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right. Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (0:23) You're listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, the podcast that keeps you plugged in about the latest and greatest in pop culture. Now, if you're a pop culture enthusiast who's not following the show yet, we're recommending you fix that right away by following Pop Culture Happy Hour on your favorite podcast app. So I don't think the story works, but I saw the charm of some of the actors getting together. So maybe that's the point. Speaker 3 (0:55) People love sequels and they love witches. That's the thinking behind Practical Magic 2, the new follow-up to a film about two sisters who are doomed by a family curse that means any man they love will die. More than 25 years later, stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are back for this new chapter in which the next generation is discovering the dangers of being born into a family of cursed witches. I'm Linda Holmes, and joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is culture writer Kristen Meinzer. Hello, Kristen. Hi, how you doing, Linda? I am well, thank you. Also with us is Margaret Willison. She's a culture writer who is teaching a class about Jane Austen. Hello, Margaret. Hi, Linda. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. Also with us is Jordan Cruciola. She's the editor of the action movie newsletter, The Action Desk. Hello, Jordan. Speaker 7 (1:46) Hello. Thank you so much for having me, Coven. Speaker 3 (1:50) Fabulous, fabulous. Practical Magic, which came out in 1998, starred Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as Sally and Jillian Owens, sisters and witches who discovered that any man they fell in love with would die thanks to a spell cast by one of their ancestors. By the end of that film, it seemed like the curse had been broken and they might be able to love happily. But in Practical Magic 2, we learn that this was not to be, and that Sally, who was happily coupled by the end of the first movie, is single again, devastated by the effects of the curse, she's kept it from her own daughters, played by Joey King and Maisie Williams, that there is a curse at all. They also don't know that they are witches like their mother with powerful magic at their disposal. Naturally, this creates problems once the curse starts to assert itself in their lives, and Kylie, played by King, decides to figure out how to end the curse once and for all. This is not as easy as it sounds, and it naturally puts Kylie in danger. It also brings her mother and aunt into the orbit of a sexy professor who studies the dark arts. He's played by Lee Pace. Speaker 4 (2:54) You ignore your heritage at your peril. Oh Speaker 2 (2:57) my God, can we please not do the peril speech? You're Speaker 4 (3:00) blocked. Speaker 2 (3:01) Yeah, Speaker 4 (3:01) she's very blocked. You know what? I'm not a drain. I'm a human being. Speaker 3 (3:07) Practical Magic is in theaters now. Jordan, I'm going to start with you. How did you feel about Practical Magic 2? Practical Magic 2, Linda, did not Speaker 7 (3:17) have its hooks in me from the very start. And I was a little worried that it was feeling a little cash grabby. It was feeling a little clunky. It was like, oh, no, this trailer, which had me worried, is seeming to fulfill my concerns. And I was like, I was not feeling optimistic about the rest of the movie. But at a certain point, it did turn over. If I fully embraced it, I was with the perfect person. I was watching my best friend in LA. And we were laughing out loud to each other for all the right reasons. Okay. Throughout the entire rest of the movie. And I got to say, by the end of it, we looked at each other and we were like. What an outstanding time. Didn't know I wanted to welcome Practical Magic 2 back into my life, but it turns out that I do. Speaker 3 (4:00) All right. Well, hey, I am glad to hear it. A surprise even to me. A surprise even to me, I will say. Listen, I hear you. You never know what you're going to get from these sequels. Kristen, how about you? What did you get from this sequel? Speaker 5 (4:11) I got to say, Jordan, I love your enthusiasm. And I will concede there are some bright moments in this film. The crowd favorites, of course, Diane Wiest and Stockard Channing. They get a little bit more screen time in this movie than in the original, which I like. And there's way less of Sandra Bullock making out with boring men. That's probably the biggest problem with the first movie. Okay, huge. Real problem with Speaker 4 (4:32) the Speaker 5 (4:32) first movie. That being said, the movie is just... way too long. It's trying too hard to convince us that Sandra Bullock is a regimented anti-magic who is a stick in the mud. They spend a lot of time on setup and they spend a lot of time on breakdown. There's not one, not two, but at least three endings to this movie. True. I just wanted them to get into the story. Let us be in this world. Let us get into the action. Less meandering. Let's get to it. Speaker 3 (4:59) Okay. So we have Jordan, who's firmly pro. We have Kristen, who is not Not, not pro. Margaret, where are you on Practical Magic 2? Speaker 6 (5:10) I feel like if you told me this movie was generative AI from stem to stern, I would be like. Wow, it's incredible what AI can do. So in that sense, it could be worse, but it could also be so much better. The aesthetics, the overall aesthetics of the movie were very distracting to me because they were so cloyingly overpopulated. And I did go back to watch the first movie again after this and be like, was this always the vibe? But there is just such a difference between like an organic. Like, this is the first time we're using these aesthetics. And between this sort of bedazzled reanimation, it felt a little bit like this is maybe a niche reference. But if you are somebody who likes to go on the internet and get like, cozy diner, 4K HD loop, this felt like somebody had kind of created like, cozy witch house, like 4K HD, like relaxing loop. That's kind of how the movie registered for me. There are many worse things, but there are also many better things, like the original movie. Yeah. That was where I came down on it. Speaker 3 (6:17) Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I realized as we came up to this that I don't think I had ever seen the first Practical Magic. I was like in my late 20s when that came out. So I was maybe a little bit out of the kind of primo age for that. I know of such great fondness in people who are like a sketch younger than me, but I just missed it. When it first came out, it was not my speed. And so when I went back and watched the first one, I watched it and I thought like, okay. And I looked at what some of the reviews of it at the time said, and it did not get great reviews when it came out. And one of the complaints about it was, you know, it's kind of tonally all over the place. They don't seem to really necessarily know what movie this is. The thing is, I had that feeling about this sequel as well. Some of the same complaints that people had about the first one, that it felt a little disjointed and it felt a little like it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I do think the most successful parts of this second film. are the parts that are comedic, particularly playing off of either the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman or between Sandra Bullock and Lee Pace, both of which I think bring some funny little bantery. There's a lot in this that is just, this is what Sandra Bullock is good at. And I found those things delightful. But there's also this extremely heavy, dramatic. story kind of hanging over this that I didn't think was interesting, that I didn't think was successful. And that was maybe a little too sad for what the movie otherwise was. But I sort of feel like, well, you can say that, but the first one was maybe the same way. So maybe people who love