Practical Magic

WHAT WENT WRONG

This episode of 'What Went Wrong' explores the surprising journey of the 1998 film 'Practical Magic,' a movie that bombed at the box office

Key takeaways

• The film's structural flaws—ranging from uneven pacing to underdeveloped subplots—were evident even to critics upon release.
• Despite its commercial failure, 'Practical Magic' found a second life through home video, becoming a beloved cult classic among millennials.

Main topics

• The box office failure of 'Practical Magic' despite critical acclaim from some quarters
• Griffin Dunne's personal connection to the story and its emotional roots

Notable quotes

"It's such a structural disaster... I never felt settled in the story." – Chris Winterbauer

Conclusion

While 'Practical Magic' remains structurally flawed and initially a commercial failure, its emotional

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:22) Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it is nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a series of unfortunate events that could have been avoided had people made more practical decisions with their magical abilities. As always, I am Chris Winterbauer, joined here by a squinty Lizzie Bassett, who does not agree with that assessment whatsoever. Lizzie, what have you conjured up for us this evening? Speaker 3 (0:54) She's been humming Speaker 4 (0:56) that since we got on the Zoom. Speaker 3 (0:57) That's right. That's because, obviously, we have the classic film Practical Magic to talk about today. That's because Practical Magic 2, which looks... Even magical. That old Speaker 4 (1:10) Hollywood classic. Speaker 3 (1:11) That old charmer. The even magicker Practical Magic 2, Electric Boogaloo, is hitting theaters. So we thought, why not go back and revisit the original film? And it was a wilder ride than I expected. Chris, you know, I got a little teaser that you didn't love this movie. So I'm very curious, what was your experience with Practical Magic prior to watching it for this podcast? And how has it been re-watching it for this episode? Speaker 4 (1:37) So I think for a long time, I thought Practical Magic and Hope Floats were the same movie. They're not, though they are connected. No, they came out the same year and they star the same actress. And I prefer Hope Floats. Wow, Forrest Whitaker would be thrilled. So I saw this in high school. It was on TV on occasion. The image of the upturned apple cart at the beginning of this film is forever burned in my mind. And I think it's Speaker 2 (2:06) a Speaker 4 (2:06) movie that looks really good. It looks very nice. I like the cinematography. I love the setting. And I'm cuing into something or building into something, as Lizzie can already tell. I don't remember thinking much of it when I watched it in high school. I don't remember if I watched it with my sisters. You know, they loved like Halloween Town. And, you know, we watched all those movies, The Craft, etc. So I rewatched Speaker 2 (2:25) it Speaker 4 (2:25) with Carmela and did not love it. Didn't really like it, to be honest. Although I love so many of the elements of this movie. The cast is overqualified at every turn. They're all lovely. The setting is picturesque, cozy, inviting. Cottagecore invented, presumably, because of this movie. I think it looks great. I think it has some very good special effects. I think the growing rosebush, for example. I think the ghost effects are very fun. I had a music teacher, piano teacher, who once asked... If you had to choose between playing the right note or staying in time, what do you choose? And I stupidly said, playing the right note. And he said, no, because if you're out of time, every note is wrong. And that's kind of how I felt watching this movie, which is it's such a structural disaster, candidly, that I never felt settled in the story. It is at turns. incredibly quickly paced to the detriment, I think, of the characters and then others seemingly glacially slow as we slip into a weird, charming woman returns from, you know, big town life to small town life. But there's also a dead guy in our backyard we're ignoring for this chunk of the movie. And so the way I feel about it is that its charms are many, really, truly the best ingredients you could ever find for a witch's brew. And yet it is less than the sum of its parts. However, Lizzie, I'm coming with an however, because Lizzie got a little short, not short, just disappointed. She was disappointed in my reaction when we were on a Zoom the other night. No, Speaker 3 (3:52) I just said everything you're saying is technically correct. It just happens that you're wrong. Speaker 4 (3:56) Well, actually, her words were, that is your penis talking. That's exactly what she said. I stand by that. And I looked down and she has not said anything in a long time. So let's just get that out of the way. But to be fair, I didn't want to be dismissive because this, when I went online, I saw that this movie remains atop many a listicle, many a millennial listicle of the best witchy films. And I was surprised because I had such fond memories of, you know, Death Becomes Her, The Witches of Eastwick, for example. So I went back, Lizzie, and between our last conversation and now, I watched The Witches of Eastwick, Death Becomes Her, and The Craft in order. Okay. And I understand why Practical Magic is the one that has endured. Even though I do think structurally, it's actually maybe the most flawed of the three. Oh, for sure. It's the most timeless in its... feel. And it is a movie that I can actually imagine enjoying it more not watching it from the beginning to the end and just saying, I'm going to sit down for this 30 minute stretch of this movie. I really like this 30 minute stretch of this movie. I'm not going to concern myself with how it ties into the grander narrative. All to say, I don't love this movie, but I do appreciate why it is enduring and why it, of all of those movies, is the one that is ultimately getting a sequel. I leave it there. That's totally fair. Speaker 3 (5:09) I have Speaker 4 (5:10) a Speaker 3 (5:10) very different relationship with this movie. I watched this, obviously, you probably know this, this movie did not do well in theaters. It was a pretty enormous bomb. It got a second life big time, as many movies have that we've covered on this podcast through home video and also cable where you mentioned watching it as well. But I think primarily it was home video. That is where I found it. You know, we rented this. We had this on VHS. I'm sure I had this on DVD later. I just watched this movie so many times. Like you, I remember specific images. I remember the apple cart. I remember the bicyclists. I remember the house, the kitchen, the midnight margaritas. I do have a bone to pick with that. I can't think of anything worse than to be woken up to be fed a margarita. That's not what Speaker 4 (5:55) I want. Yeah, I will take waterboarding over there at this point in Speaker 3 (5:59) my life. Speaker 4 (5:59) I'll take Speaker 3 (6:00) margarita Speaker 4 (6:00) boarding. I don't want that. We're too old. Speaker 2 (6:02) So Speaker 3 (6:03) I didn't even really remember the story that well. I did. Like, I know what happens, but I remember snapshots of it. And upon rewatching it for the podcast, you're correct. Structurally, this movie is totally a mess. The problem is, I don't care. It's still totally fun for me to watch. I enjoy every performance in this movie so much, particularly Sandra Bullock and Aidan Quinn. The two of them are remarkably good in this. Although I didn't realize he doesn't show up until halfway through this movie. And he's in it for like 30 Speaker 1 (6:33) minutes. Speaker 4 (6:34) It's over halfway through the movie. That's the end of the first act. I know. You've got a problem. Again, you can tell it's adapted by a book. There's an easy fix. You're not going to like it. But there actually is an easy fix that would help with the Aiden Quinn storyline quite a bit. Okay. You have to get rid of her first husband and the kids. You don't need them. They serve no function in the story. You can jettison them entirely. Well, you can't do that. Okay. I think that's a Speaker 3 (6:59) horrible pitch. But anyway, we will continue. Chris, professional writer, I prefer this movie in the mess that it is. All I wish to say, it's not technically a good movie. I'm aware of that. And yet, I completely love it. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. This time, I will watch this a million more times. I think what I like about it and maybe why it has endured of all those movies that you mentioned is that this is very much the softening of the witch. This is the Nora Ephron-ing of the witch. It's making it so accessible and beautiful and human in a way that I actually do think was pretty remarkable. It's the same reason why Anne Rice's vampires appeal to me, I think, is that it is applying a very human, reasonable, empathetic perspective to witches. And I really like that. I do think there is a version of this movie that I might have liked quite a bit better. But in order to talk about that, we have to get into it. So our main sources for today are a great oral history of the Midnight Margarita waterboarding scene in Rolling Stone. many, many other articles and retrospectives, and also the Friday Afternoon Club, a family memoir by Griffin Dunn, which brings us to the details. As always, this is directed by Griffin Dunn, written by Robin Swickard, Akiva Goldsman, Adam Brooks, and it is, of course, based on the 1995 novel Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. Because yes, this is a book-to-screen adaptation. And remember... you still have a little bit of time to get in your reading for our box office book club happening for all of our subscribers right now, Apple, Spotify, and Patreon. That will be happening during the month of October. We are covering four book-to-screen adaptations. So go join so you can hear more discussion just like this. It stars Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing, Diane Wiest, Aidan Quinn, Goran Visnich, Evan Rachel Wood, notably not coming back for Practical Magic 2, Camilla Speaker 4 (8:57) Bell, and more. Margo Martindale. Love that. I love Margo Martindale. And some of my favorite moments were Margo Martindale in the shop. Yeah. She's always great as a lovely small town firebrand. I Speaker 3 (9:09) remember the shop also having such a bigger part in this movie than it does. It's barely in it. Well, Speaker 4 (9:16) but Gwyneth stole that shop and turned it into Goop. Oh, yeah. Let's be honest. It's Goop Speaker 3 (9:20) for sure. Speaker 4 (9:20) It's just that Goop doesn't actually have magic Speaker 3 (9:22) or does it? Now, it cost around $75 million. It was released on October 16th, 1998. It's Speaker 4 (9:29) a Speaker 3 (9:29) good release date for it. It is a good release date. The IMDb logline, as always, is two witch sisters raised by their eccentric aunts in a small town face close-minded prejudice and a curse which threatens to prevent them ever finding lasting love. So, Chris, we have to start by talking about Alice Hoffman, the creator of the story. She was born in 1952 in New York City. When she was eight, her parents divorced, her mother, a social worker and teacher, was left to raise her and her brother alone with some help from Hoffman's Russian grandmother. Now, of her childhood, she told the New York Times, unhappiness was trapped in the house like a bubble. My mother was a teacher and a social worker and my father wasn't there. My brother was the smart one. I wanted to be a veterinarian, but I didn't think a girl could do that. I never thought that Speaker 2 (10:12) somebody like Speaker 3 (10:13) me could grow up to be a writer. I thought I'd Speaker 2 (10:15) cut hair or be a secretary. Speaker 3 (10:16) Now, her dad walked out the door to get a pack of cigarettes, never came back, but he did leave behind a box of books. And so reading fairy tales and myths really became a way for her to escape the instability that she was experiencing. It sounds like she also grew up in a pretty rough area that had a lot of drugs running through her neighborhood, a very high crime area. And she really felt that reading saved her life. She also said that, quote, the idea of urban or suburban magic was brewing under my skin. So she began writing stories, too, about people who lived in different cities, had different names, but who felt just as frightened and lost as she did. And despite how much she loved reading and writing, she didn't consider either really a viable career. So she finished high school early, didn't really plan to go to college. She works a series of odd jobs, including one at a book factory that apparently lasted less than a day. And eventually, after a few years of jumping from one job to another, she did enroll in night classes at a local college. When she graduated, her brother, who was living in San Francisco, suggested she come join him in California. And she's like, sure. But she really had no ambition, and the only thing she liked to do was read and write. So she applied for writing fellowships and scholarships. And much to her surprise, she was awarded a fellowship to study creative writing at your alma mater, Stanford University's graduate program under Albert J. Gerard, Speaker 2 (11:35) who she later said was arguably the greatest writing teacher in the country. Speaker 3 (11:38) The course's study list was overwhelmingly filled with dudes and only included work by two female writers, Flannery O'Connor, my personal favorite, and Grace Paley, who was her favorite. She felt that she proved that women could write right alongside men and that women's lives were worth writing about. So during the fellowship, One of Hoffman's early short stories was published in a literary magazine, and the story caught the attention of an editor named Ted Solitaroff, who asked her if she happened to have a novel in the works. And she said, what does any writer say when they ask you, do you have a book? In the works? It's already Speaker 4 (12:12) written. Of course. Let Speaker 3 (12:13) me just Speaker 4 (12:13) give it a quick two to six week perusal for typos. Just scrub it. Speaker 3 (12:17) And I will Speaker 4 (12:17) get back to you. Just polish it. Also, it might get lost in the mail. Just give me a little time. Speaker 3 (12:23) Yes. Let me just, oops, I spilled some coffee on it. She did not have a book. Speaker 4 (12:26) Nope. Speaker 3 (12:26) But she said, I absolutely do. And she started writing it that day. She said on Substack, quote, I had read enough fairy tales to know that such a monumental, life-changing chance is offered only once, and at least that's how it went in the stories. If I didn't accept the challenge, it might never come again. And six months later, I had a manuscript. So he passed on it, but he did recommend her to an agent named Elaine Markson, who sold the manuscript. And in 1977, at the age of 21, she had published her first novel called Property Of, which is about a teenager who falls in love with a charismatic gang leader and then, of course, struggles to maintain her values. This is a theme that she would really return to throughout her work. It's the importance of women gaining and maintaining their independence. I think we see that in Practical Magic as well. Now, over the next 18 years, she published 10 more novels, to which Colleen Hoover said, hold my beer, Speaker 2 (13:15) and published 105. Speaker 3 (13:16) By the early 90s, she was an established author, and she was really waiting for the right idea to come along for her next novel. Now, she liked to write down a list of potential titles, and there was one that she had written down that she always loved, and it was Practical Magic. But it was just a title. She had no idea what the story was. But in the summer of 1993, Chris... She walked into a shed on a marsh in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where she owned an antique farmhouse, as one does. And she said that Sally, Jillian, Franny, and Jet walked in after her in that shed, ready to tell their story. She says writing Practical Magic was unusually intuitive. She explained to the Enchanted Living magazine, I don't know what the book is, but I'm going to write it. I've never had that happen to me before. When I first sat down to write it, I felt like the characters had arrived, and that's really a rare thing. In 1995, it became her 11th novel. Practical Magic was published, and this one was a massive literary success, bigger than anything she'd written before. So of course, Hollywood came knocking in the form of producer Denise Denovi. She had just produced Heathers, one of my all-time faves, and a huge run of Tim Burton films, including Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns. She'd actually run Tim Burton Productions before founding her own production company, Denovi Pictures. Now, when she left her partnership with Burton, she decided that she's going to focus on making female-driven content. And so she signed on to produce Practical Magic at Turner Pictures and called up Robin Sweikard to adapt the novel for screen. And this makes a lot of sense. Robin had just adapted Little Women and was either working on or was about to start adapting Matilda. Do Speaker 4 (14:51) you know whose mom she is? Speaker 3 (14:52) Oh, shoot. I did know this at one point. Tell me. Her Speaker 4 (14:55) husband's Nicholas Kazan. Speaker 3 (14:56) Oh, that's right. It's Zoe Kazan. Her Speaker 4 (14:58) daughter's Zoe Kazan. Yeah. Speaker 3 (15:00) She's also a relative of Aliyah Kazan, right? Speaker 4 (15:02) Zoe's Aliyah's granddaughter, I believe. Speaker 3 (15:04) Yes. Damn. Yeah. Speaker 4 (15:06) Nicholas is one of his sons. Yes. Noted. Perhaps not great to work with Aliyah Kazan. Zoe Kazan seems lovely. And Robin Swycord is a great writer. Speaker 3 (15:16) Yes. Very. Makes a ton of sense for this job. Speaker 4 (15:19) Also Speaker 3 (15:20) should be noted that she would be called to adapt other supposedly unadaptable material later, like Memoirs of a Geisha, the Jane Austen Book Club. Speaker 4 (15:27) Curious case of Benjamin Button. Yes. Oscar nominated for that. Speaker 3 (15:30) Yes. So it seems like if anybody is going to pull this off, it's going to be Robin. And it started really well. Like Hoffman at Stanford, Swiker was interested in the idea of women being deeply connected to the life force around them. And her starting point with this adaptation was thinking about how the community needed the Owens, which is the same way the world needed women. And her plan initially was to stay faithful to the novel. But around page 75, she hit a wall when she realized that, quote, there's just no magic here. Part of the issue was the setting. Because... The thing is, in the book, they don't live on a beautiful small town island. They live in the Boston suburbs. And in her view, Bostonians wouldn't just gossip. We Speaker 4 (16:09) live in Saudi. Saudi. Speaker 3 (16:11) Yeah. Speaker 4 (16:12) Jamaica plain. Speaker 3 (16:13) It doesn't have the same ring. Yeah. In her view, Bostonians wouldn't just gossip and scurry out of their way. They would actively try to drive the women out. That's fair. Speaker 4 (16:23) That's true. Yeah, Dave Portnoy's not having it. Oh my God. Get out of here. Can Speaker 3 (16:27) you imagine the Barstool Sports articles on the Owens sisters? Speaker 4 (16:31) No. Speaker 3 (16:34) Okay, so she figured, fine, we need to move the story somewhere stranger, more isolated, somewhere where magic could be a bit more a part of daily life. So she relocated the story. It's now in a charming coastal town. supposed to be in New England, although of course we know that's not where it is, but we'll get there, somewhere that it was believable that maybe generations of women had lived as witches and the town would kind of just whisper about them, but maybe not set the house on fire the way they might if they were in the outskirts of Boston. So the problem was, though, once she changed the setting, the rest of the story also had to change because the more she wrote, the further the screenplay moved away from Hoffman's novel. Now, one big change involved the daughters. Hoffman's novel focused a lot on the daughters who were teenagers in the book and then the dangers that teenage girls experienced. A couple of examples of this. One, in the novel, Jimmy's ghost actually stalks Kylie, who is aged around 13 and Antonia about 16, following them around and hiding in the bushes. There's another scene where Kylie is chased by a group of drunken men one night on the way back from her best friend's house. Things that I think more literally express the threat that women, even young women, feel. And Robin felt that putting those moments on screen risked becoming exploitative. There's a big difference, you know, between reading about a situation and watching it play out on screen, especially if you're talking about a 13 and 16-year-old girl. I get it. So she cut much of that material. She made both girls younger. Now, the aunts were another major challenge because, Chris, Alice Hoffman had written them speaking in unison just because. And in the novel, they weren't particularly defined independent of each other. which is a fun, you know, literary device in terms of the book. Obviously, it's not going to work on screen. Robin went to Alice Hoffman for help, and she said, I'd like to know a little bit more about them. They're not twins, right? Is one going to be older than the other? Can you give me some sense of maybe who the older one might be? And Alice Hoffman basically said, too bad, so sad. I've never thought about them as different people and gave her nothing. So she told Robin. You know what I was thinking about when I was writing them? I was thinking about the animated movie about Sleeping Beauty and these three fairies that were floating around. And then I imagined she just floated out the window and went off onto the marshes. Speaker 3 (18:54) This is not an easy job. And while Rob and Swikard wrestled with the adaptation, they just went ahead and started casting. Now, a few years earlier, Sandra Bullock had broken out in what movie? Well, Speaker 4 (19:05) Speed was probably her big breakout. That's Speaker 3 (19:07) right. 1994. But Speaker 4 (19:09) lest you forget Demolition Man. Very fun movie from 1993. Sure. You can forget it. It's fine. I almost did, I think. But it is fun. Speaker 3 (19:17) So 20th Century Fox, of course, though, wanted her back for what? sequel that we will certainly cover at some point. The Speaker 4 (19:24) only movie that she was in in 1997, Speed 2, Cruise Control. Speaker 3 (19:30) Can you explain the Speaker 4 (19:31) premise of Speed 2, Cruise Control? Yes. For anyone who doesn't know. They're on a cruise ship, and if they go slower than six knots, they all die. Although, okay, we make fun of this movie. I didn't see it in theaters. I definitely saw it like when I was very young on VHS. You know, it's got Willem Dafoe in it. Jason Patrick replaces Keanu Reeves, I think, in that one. Yeah, Speaker 3 (19:51) because Keanu had the ability to say that. Keanu said, Speaker 4 (19:54) I think he like had to pay money to get on with that movie. He did. We will cover it. It does have an amazing stunt special effects sequence at the end of the film when the giant cruise ship does eventually, spoiler, crash into a dock. That is pretty impressive. But aside from that, you can probably skip it. It's Speaker 3 (20:10) pretty bad. And so when they said, hey, Sandy B, come on back for the cruise ship, she said, do I have to? And they said, contractually, yes. So she was stuck. But to sweeten the deal, they offered to bankroll her dream project, which was Hope Floats. Speaker 2 (20:27) But Speaker 3 (20:27) just as everyone had predicted, Speed 2 Cruise Control bombed. And after this, she really changed the way that she selected projects, and I would imagine also the way she read contracts. She really wanted to look at the movie as a whole instead of just looking at her part, and she made a promise to herself that she was not going to say yes to anything that came her way. At this point, she could be more