Practical Magic (1998)

The Owens sisters (Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman) are the most recent in a long line of witches, who are under a curse set by one of their ancestors, that any man they fall in love with will suffer an untimely death. They live in a small New England town whose inhabitants harbor prejudice against witches, which makes life uncomfortable for Sally who is bringing up a family but not for Gillian who seems to revel in the fact that she is different to everyone else.

When Gillian's boyfriend Jimmy Angelov turns on her and threatens both Sally's and Gillian's lives Sally saves them by killing him. After realising what sort of trouble they are both in they try to resurrect him using witchcraft that they have been forbidden to use. This leads to Gillian's boyfriend turning into a Zombie. Soon after officer Gary Hallet turns up to find out the cause of Jimmy Angelov's mysterious disappearance.

Both the sound and visual quality of the film was good. The one minor problem I had with the sound was the musical score. The music itself is actually quite good and fits in with the movie, the only trouble is it is a little too dominating in some scenes, my personal rule of thumb for a good soundtrack is that you should never notice it, it should enhance a scene not take it over. In this movie I noticed the soundtrack a few too many times.

The film is based on Alice's Hoffmans' book and covers a wide range of genres, romance, horror, comedy, female bonding and drama, which come together nicely in parts of the film but in other parts don't gel as well and as a result of this the film can be a little disjointed from scene to scene. The film is definitely not short of acting talent but it is underused with the exception of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman who played their roles well.

The makers of the film could have done more with the non title role characters and made the film more consistent, but overall the film is enjoyable and apart from its faults is worth watching.