We have established a new trust fund appropriately called "Dave's Trust Fund." Upon much reflection it has been discovered Dave ain't suffering from a loss of faith, but rather a loss in trust. Contribute now for a worthy cause and investment. Help Dave regain his trust in people...
The new movie, Practical Magic is about:
a) The mischief of two sister witches;
b) The mystical mystery of love;
c) A Halloween love story;
d) A combination of all of the above?
There are a list of things I miss about the World's Greatest Soccer Player, but among the highest is having a discriminating and literate partner to share the movie going process with. Thus it was with some comfort on a windy October afternoon to think that when she sees Sandra Bullock's newest movie, Practical Magic, the World's Greatest Soccer Player will smile ever so briefly and remember some of the trips to the many movies we saw together.
Our greatest moment together came on another Saturday afternoon when we didn't know what we wanted to do so we took a walk to Blockbuster together and decided to have the Great American Movie count off. She, being the fierce competitor she was, insisted despite having a ten year disadvantage that she had seen more movies than I had. So we went from section to section and counted the movies we had seen. She beat me by forty-some movies but I reminded her that many movies I had seen were of the black and white era, an era Blockbuster is sorely lacking. She of course discounted the claim as sour grapes.
She was actually the second Siskel to my Ebert. The original came along during my now famous blue period. Together we saw many movies together and she impressed me with her ability to know how to watch a movie: the appropriate times to laugh; the one or two moments in each movie that she knew I'd want to talk about afterwards. It was this moviegoer who I am reminded of every time I see Sandra Bullock. Something about the way Bullock's eyes and nose come together, her mannerisms, her sense of humor and fun are so remindful of my long lost friend that the resemblance still causes me to wistfully remember the one who helped restore my love of movies.
Bullock is quite good in Practical Magic. Co- star Nicole Kidman gets to have more fun in her role as the more adventurous sister witch but it is Bullock who ultimately rescues the film from itself. The film is disjointed especially in the first half where it's almost painful in its efforts trying to establish what it wants to be- artful and other worldly or some type of black comedy. It's clear that the movie is based on a novel (by Alice Hoffman) because so much is left unsaid that at times it is difficult to follow (characters are not fleshed out; the relationship between the major characters is missing some key scenes; whole years of establishing the nature of the towns people with the sisters is missing). Yet the second half pulls things together adequately enough, and Bullock's screen presence makes us care enough to dismiss the film's bigger flaws.
In a way it is a movie similar to Bullock's last effort, Hope Floats. In that movie she played a woman who lost her husband to another woman, had to struggle with her relationship with her daughter and with finding out who she wanted to be the rest of her life as she tried to open up her heart to another. In Practical Magic she plays a woman who loses her husband to the curse of the family (any man who falls in love with an Owens woman is doomed to a premature death), denies who she really is, and has to struggle raising two daughters as she tries to open up her heart to another.
Kidman is good as the free spirit sister who doesn't spend time contemplating her own differences with the world around her. She just wants to have some fun. The chemistry between the two co-stars works well and one ends up wishing the movie worked better as a whole. With better writing and editing this could have been the great Halloween love story it strives to be. The message that if you believe in something strongly enough, the faith will make it come true is scattered like the rose petals Bullock's character spreads into the wind early on. It made me think of my own most memorable Halloween day when the Woman from Chicago and I went trick or treating down Summit Avenue only to be greeted by weary homeowners a bit perturbed to be bothered by two college kids out for fun. No matter- it was the first time we took our masks off in front of each other and saw the truth revealed more clearly than ever before. The memory of which is almost as sad as one of being stood up by a visitor from Vegas on Halloween night. In Practical Magic the movie works almost in spite of what it is trying to do. The simple belief that there is something out there more powerful than any of us yet simultaneously all of us can determine our own relationship with that mystery comes through as clear as the spirits that visit you throughout the movie.