“Community is so important,” I satirically declared as Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock cascaded from their house’s roof in Practical Magic (1998).
My friends and I have made a running joke of the phrase. We deploy it after a group workout class, when we spot a stranger wearing the same shirt, or when we send one another the same posts on social media.
Although it originated as an inside joke, the more we reference this little motto, the less ironic it becomes. This phrase has became a constant in our lives long before we recognized the serious truth of this silly mantra: community matters. Each time we spot a little coincidence, we point it out because it makes us feel apart of something greater.
There is something profoundly human about sharing an experience, recognizing yourself in someone else, and realizing that the things you thought made you weird might actually make you part of something larger.
Which brings me back to Practical Magic.
As I reflected on my Letterboxd final remark, I found myself thinking about the film’s resurgence following its sequel’s release this year.
Audiences are returning to the world of the Owens sisters for all sorts of reasons. Some cite nostalgia, the film’s cult following, it’s remarkably quotable dialogue, it’s catchy music, or even its iconic wardrobe. These are all perfectly reasonable explanations, but I suspect the real attraction is again something deeper: the community created through the film’s representation.
Practical Magic exemplifies that we need to see ourselves reflected on screen, not as a pun of the joke, not as cautionary tales, and certainly not as supporting characters in someone else’s story. We need to see our friendships, our oddities, our complicated relationships with love, and our gift of getting to grow old.
Representation, With a Little Witchcraft
Practical Magic follows Sally and Gillian Owens, played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, two sisters that descend from a long line of witches. Despite their abilities, their ancestry comes with an inconvenient family curse: any man who falls in love with an Owens woman is doomed to die. After the curse claims their parents, the sisters are raised by their aunts, both of which teach them the importance of magic; as a gift and as a burden.
As Sally and Gillian grow up, the audience sees them navigate love, loss, and the occasional catastrophe, throughout which they discover their witchcraft might not be their most valuable strength; perhaps it is their sisterhood.
The film reflects that sisterhood is not solely from sharing parents, a last name, blood, or a bedroom. It is the bond that persists through mistakes and heartbreak, and those moments are considerably less charming and convenient than the movies make them out to be.
Though some of us are lucky enough to have a sister like Sally or Gillian, we also form equivalent bonds; cultivating together a family from friends, neighbors, and the people who show up for us when things fall apart.
In addition to the film’s emphasis on sisterhood, the story also recognizes the burden of being different. For much of their lives, Sally and Gillian struggle with their family’s history, attempting to distance themselves from their abilities. At the beginning of the film, their past is a source of shame. They want to be ordinary, or at least to enjoy the privileges of appearing ordinary, without having to explain themselves to a world that does not quite know what to make of them.
Sound familiar? Women have long been asked to sand down their edges, soften their opinions, conceal their ambitions, and make their differences more palatable. We are encouraged to stand out, but ensure that we do not make anyone uncomfortable by doing so. We are told to embrace our individuality, but remain likeable to the general public.
The Owens sisters offer a differing perspective. They reconcile with their differences, seeing them not as defect but simply traits that need to be understood. There is a kind of community in that recognition, too: the relief of discovering that you do not have to become someone else to belong.
Growing Older, Getting Better
Beyond the story itself, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock have a lot to do with the film’s success; offering increasingly important recognition, the opportunity to watch women grow older, evolve, and continue to occupy the center of the frame.
Despite the great strides women have made throughout time — and especially in film — we can still see the systematic effects.
Women are encouraged to make themselves smaller, younger, and more palatable. We are sold the idea that if you have the resources, aging is a problem to be managed rather than a privilege to be experienced. Kidman and Bullock resign this notion through continuing to work, and continuing to inhabit characters whose lives do not end when their youth does.
There is something quietly radical about watching women age in public without treating the passage of time as a tragedy. It reminds us that a woman’s story does not conclude when she leaves her twenties, thirties, or even the age at which Hollywood once decided she was no longer a romantic lead. For women, that visibility matters. Representation is not merely about seeing someone who looks like you today. It is about seeing a possible future for yourself.
Sally and Gillian are not frozen in time, and neither are the women who play them. Perhaps that is why the film feels so resonant now. In a culture obsessed with reinvention, Practical Magic offers something more reassuring: continuity.
So, yes. Community is important. I suppose my friends and I were onto something all along, even if we were usually saying it to get a laugh out of one another.
There are a few things I know for certain. Whether you are listening to Stevie Nicks this autumn, mixing midnight margaritas, or simply reminding your friends that you love them, you are participating in a little bit of Owens family magic.
And if Practical Magic has taught us anything, it is that the best kind of magic was never really about spells.
It was about the community.