Well, hello there! I haven’t written on here for well over a year, and it may come as a shocker that I am returning to a christian blog with a movie about witchcraft, having some aroace takeaway from a story about love. But here we are.
Practical Magic has been personally recommended to me for years, but I wanted to save my first time watching it so it’d be magical.
Instead, when I finally watched this movie it was from my phone, propped up in front of me on the coffee table, me sitting on the floor. I had seafood tacos, and in the middle of the movie, I’d paused to get pint of cherry ice cream from the liquor store down the street. I had candles lit. I’d had a bad day, and finally gave in and said to hell with it. Let’s conjure this up ourselves and feel magical.
Practical Magic opens like a fairy tale. Once upon a time, a woman with magical gifts was to be hanged for being a witch. She managed to magically escape death, and now in exile only had to wait for her lover to return as promised. She was pregnant.
When her lover never returns for her, however, she is so struck with agony that she wants to protect herself and her own from ever being betrayed again. She enacts a curse: that all men who fall in love with her (or her descended daughters) would die an early death.
“Is that what why daddy died?” a little girl’s voice asks. “The curse?”
“Yes, my darling,” a kind woman’s voice answers. “Your mother knew.”
“But that’s how you came to live with us,” another woman’s voice adds, soft and gentle. “We tucked you into your lives and raised you the best way we knew how.”
Thus we are introduced to the main characters: two sisters, raised by their eccentric aunts, all with the power of magic but the curse of doomed romantic love.
It may seem unexpected for this to resonate with me so hard. But just earlier that day, I had dealt with a heartbreak myself. I was watching this film in the midst of a great anxious mess from a pile of mail and bills that were not mine, a wi-fi that stopped working on television and laptop (but for some reason persisted on the phone), phone calls that led to cycled automated voice recordings asking for information I did not have. I was picking up pieces from being ghosted by someone who felt close as a brother.
Platonic heartbreak feels irreparable, an agony invisible to most other eyes.
So in the movie, young sisters Gillian and Sally are no strangers to the dark side of falling in love. There is even a scene where an unstable customer comes in the middle of the night begging their aunts for a love spell to make a man leave his wife for her. Seeing how crazed or hurt people can become when infatuated, little Sally whispers, “I hope I never fall in love.” She later goes on to make a list of impossible traits for her one true love, in an attempt to make it impossible for love to find her.
Little Gillian, on the other hand, is fascinated at this intense human emotion apparently in store. “I can’t wait to fall in love.”
Despite their differences (and trauma responses), the sisters are so deeply bonded that they swear to always be there for each other, to the point they say they would even die on the same day.
As adults, even the charmed life they have with their witchy aunts, even the contentment they have with each other, can’t keep them from wanting to add some sweet excitement to their lives. Gillian free-spiritedly runs off to chase men and enjoy flings; Sally stays in town with their aunts and begrudgingly wishes to be happier, until one day like a fairytale, she falls in love, gets married, has a happy family.
But the curse still catches up with them, still “protecting” them long after a curse is necessary. Ironically, a spell two hundred years ago intended to protect from heartbreak, has now only increased heartbreak tenfold with each generation it isolates and widows.
This may sound like a wild comparison, but honestly, as a christian, this is how I think a lot of scripture has become. Letters to tight-knit community two thousand years ago, poetry intended to praise in all season of the human condition, ancient stories told in awe and wonder–have soured and robbed others of love. Scripture once intended to give hope to outcasts and new life to the oppressed, has now (and for countless generations, sadly) become a source of grief and justified oppression, now limiting people’s awe and wonder to literal word-for-word obsessions with (translations of) it.
As a personal example, I think of how my favorite verses are so oft-misused. “I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” a song of delight in self as an Image of God, has been twisted to limit people’s exploration of that self. People are told the details of who they are are “focusing on earthly life” or “idolatry,” instead of something new being created all the time, alive and wonderful.
Even more relevant, another of my favorites is from Song of Solomon, the erotic poetry of “do not awaken love until it so desires.” Until it so desires. This verse means a lot to me as an asexual aromantic because says not to force love before it’s ready, not to rush into love by anyone else’s timing but your own. As you may be familiar with, this verse has instead been used to tell people their desires when they DO feel it are evil and must be suppressed until marriage. (So hurry up and get married, they tell me.) It’s pretty mind-boggling to me.
Anyway, Practical Magic. Sally’s blissful family life gets cut short when her husband dies. She runs back to her aunts begging and pleading that they use their magic to bring him back to life. “You brought him into my life, now I want you to bring him back.” The aunts, while heartbroken for her, tell her they draw the line at that kind of magic, because whatever they bring back would not be him. Devastated and no doubt desperately angry at her aunts, Sally still returns to the safety of their home and brings her own two little daughters to live there.
Watching her desperation gutted me. I’ve prayed this prayer too. You brought this into my life, now I want you to bring it back. Take it a step further. God, how could you. How could you let me feel something so sweet and then take it away? I was content before, I never asked you for this, but if you insisted then I let myself be thankful for it. So what could you possibly want, why take it from me?
And no, I don’t think that’s a bad prayer at all. It’s real. It’s honest. No “buts” about it. This is not a lesson in never complaining. This is about how I get to.
Sally’s sister Gillian returns for a moment to comfort her and help her grieve. They stay up late catching up. Gillian also speaks of having found a love that excites her, even if it’s rare she gets a chance to be left alone to sleep. The sisters rest in comfort and solace together, and then back Gillian goes to her exciting life.
Then, one day, Sally senses right away something’s wrong, even before she’s in the house, even before the phone rings.
“Sally, can you come get me, I’m so scared.”
Gillian has been in an abusive relationship this whole time.
Sally wastes no time in coming to rescue her sister. But as Gillian tries to go back for her lucky bracelet, her abuser shows up in the back of their car and threatens them both, holding them hostage. Gillian is in constant danger of being assaulted while Sally is forced to drive, but their deep magical bond allows them to communicate thoughts. Gillain tells Sally it’ll be alright if they drug his drink; however, Sally poisons the man by overdosing the belladona. She has protected her sister, whose life was in immediate danger.
Gillian insists, however, that they must try to bring him back to life. As absurd and ungrateful as it sounds, she appeals to Sally that they don’t want to be jailed for being murderers, and besides, if he was already bad in life, maybe a resurrected him would be a better version.
Okay, yeah, that actually still sounds absurd. But Sally wants to give her sister peace so reluctantly agrees to do the very dark magic that had been refused her in her own grief. They attempt to ressurrect him–which goes very wrong. Not only is there an abuser in the house, but he has zombie evil strength and goes right back to hurting Gillian.
The sisters immediately end him a second time as a zombie, and quickly bury the body in their yard.
The next morning they also struggle to get an investigator off their case, no matter how sympathetic he seems to be.
At this time, Gillian and Sally wrestle with what their experiences with love have taught them. In a sad and sobering moment, Gillian warns her nieces, Sally’s little daughters, that falling in love is like spinning around in circles and getting dizzy, and that without something to focus on, you don’t see what’s happening to everyone around you. And you don’t realize when you’re about to fall.
I’m not big on romantic comedies because they often do this thing where they bring up a good point about protecting yourself or being content without mainstream romance–only to hit you over the head with putting exclusive romantic love first all over again, without differentiating from the kind of attachment that caused grief or abuse in the first place. There are many stories where trauma is often dismissed as someone hardening their heart and keeping themselves from being happy. Where a character is punished for being vulnerable, but the movie’s ultimate message is to just be vulnerable again.
However, this movie actually seems a lot more grounded in sisterly love than anything else. The romances are significant details in their lives, but it’s the sibling bond that brings them together and takes them through everything. They help each other grieve, they rescue each other, they make mistakes together, they protect each other. They defeat evil zombies and demons together. And their aunts, in the midst of grief and widowhood, are the reason they have such a safe and loving home, full of chocolate cake and midnight margaritas. They still make the best magical life for themselves, with or without men.
This is the oft-overlooked magic in our day-to-day living. Who returns to us? Who holds us through when our highs crash? Who is up with us at midnight brewing tea for comfort, speaking spells of affirmation, banishing what afflicts us, giving us shelter in the midst of the sad? Who are our equals, who keep energy flowing back to us mutually?
What kind of magic heals us, that we can trust completely without fear; and what kind of magic comes with strings?
When we want to bring something back, do we know what we are asking for?
If I were them, I’d think their household is already complete and beautifully content, with the curse even protecting them from creeps. If you’ll excuse the weird and awkward christian connection, perhaps I feel like Paul did in the New Testament, emphasizing community and saying it is better for the widow to remain as she is than hurry to define herself in new marriage, when a greater change to the way things are is coming. Perhaps I imagine a world of prioritized community love and eternal platonic love, outlasting the pedestal on which we’ve put nuclear family and individualistic romantic love.
But I’m aroace and celibate; they’re not. And regardless, I also can’t blame them for wanting to end generational grief. (If they were all queer and supportive family it’d be a different movie though! Let me know if anyone writes a spinoff.)
Here’s where the plot gets strange for me. Sally starts to fall in love with Gary, the investigator she’s trying to throw off. He’s a genuine person who is trying to track down a missing murderer–and he doesn’t mean them. (It turns out Gillian’s ex they buried was not only abusive, but a full-on serial killer.)
In the meantime, the more time Gary spends with the family to show the sincerity of his care, the more little quirks and details are revealed about him. His favorite shape is a star. He can flip pancakes in the air. He has one eye green and one blue. These traits all miraculously match the list of impossible traits Sally had made when she was little, when she attempted to make it impossible for love to find her. It’s almost as if she had conjured him herself and he was made for her.
This part gets iffy for me because as a kid I remember being told to write a list of standards now for whom I would date leter when I was old enough to, and to never change those standards. As a clueless young asexual, I didn’t know what I wanted nor did I care to think about it. The church told me he must be christian. My heart told me he must not be abusive. The church told me he must never make attempts on your purity. My heart would later tell me I didn’t even want sex ever. The church told me christian romances must look like friendships. My heart would later question why couldn’t I just make a friendship stay.
I’m iffy about love spells and making someone fall in love with you, and when it comes to just wanting company, I still haven’t figured out what is selfish entitlement and what is genuine human desire of the heart. Perhaps I’m still learning what I want and what’s meant for me. But I have seen something I wanted since I was a child come true. And then maybe that led to more pain as I convinced myself to keep it because it was what I’d wished for—how could I give up what I’d wished for?
Sometimes, I remember it like Sally, begging and pleading, “bring him back,” and whispering, “I really was happy.”
Sometimes, I remember it like Gillian, relaying her excitement, and then her fears.
Sometimes, I remember it with a bitterness like both of them: it’s not fair that the curse had to affect us too.
So I’m iffy about manifesting/specifying exactly what we want people to be for us, but I’m curious at the same time what is okay to really specifically ask for. I also go back and forth on the idea of soulmates; I’m skeptical of people being made for solely one other person, just as I am skeptical of grief being part of some great plan. However, part of me is curious, if there really are creative intelligent forces that are Good, if there is a God that truly knows the good in everyone, could They not bring us together?
Sally sees Gary’s eyes in the light, just as she imagined as a child, and backs away, too overwhelmed to deal (understandably). However, there are more pressing matters at home when she returns. Her sister opens her arms to her, but then starts to act incredibly odd and creepy. Sally realizes Gillian has been possessed.
Yeah, that zombie resurrection spell was forbidden for a reason. (And yeah, we just found out he was a serial killer who targets women so that’s double trouble right there).
Realizing she can no longer deny her heritage, and also that she cannot do this alone, Sally enlists the help of the other women in town to form a coven and banish the evil spirit. At this point, when she asks for help and shares her resources, she is creating new community. The townspeople who once judged the witches now have a change of heart and must be willing to learn if they are going to reach their shared goal of defeating evil.
The community is essential to the amount of evil-banishing they are going to do. They set the scene, they protect the most vulnerable, they combine their energy. But ultimately it is Sally’s unshakeable love for her sister that saves the day. Not “the right man,” cuz he goes into the background and he can wait. Not a distant soulmate manifested on paper, not a love conjured out of thin air, not a love based on being exactly what you want or being a second-best escape. A love formed by time and trust, and that chooses to sit beside you in the dark, and chooses to return. A love even willing to die for her sister’s mistakes, willing to die the same day so she wouldn’t be alone.
That’s agape love if I’ve ever heard of one. Love based on actions, willing to lay down her life for her friend, willing to bring her back from the dead no matter what tries to take her.
Gillian struggles through the possession, trying to tell Sally it’s too dangerous and it’s her fault, but Sally insists she is not leaving her. In the end, laying on the floor beside one another, with entwined hands tight and mingled blood, they share the pain—and their love exorcises the evil spirit. The sisters are saved.
It’s so powerful that even the generational curse is broken.
The community works to sweep out the evil and seal the dead man’s grave. Sally later receives notice that the investigator Gary even worked to protect their case and claim the abuser’s death as accidental. Now that his trust is earned (and the curse has been broken), Sally lets herself fall in love again.
The movie ends with the note “fall in love whenever you can,” which, once again, I am IFFY about. Because there was a legit reason why the women of this family wanted to avoid causing early deaths and grief. Because trauma is a valid reason someone would be wary not to trust just anyone who promises to come back for her. Because Gillian fell in love whenever she could and that’s how she ended up with the resurrected serial killer!
But I don’t think the movie’s really about throwing all caution to the wind as if passions can’t go wrong. I don’t think it’s about romantic love justifying all. It’s only by the deeply spiritual platonic bond between the sisters that all other pain is healed and other loves can happen again. It’s only by the sisters’ commitment and love that evil is cast out.
And it’s only by embracing and loving oneself, darkness and light, that there can be any way forward.
Sally long refuses to accept having magical powers in her blood. She only sees the curse, but not the blessings. But it’s exactly by embracing her gifts that she can hear her sister no matter how far, that she can come to the rescue, that she can “come out” to the community and help others like her. She needs to be part of the change.
And she must allow herself empowerment and enchantment in her life again.
So here is the ending note in full, which does not have to be about relationships at all, but about allowing ourselves to romanticize our lives, feel how far we’ve come and how much we’ve learned and built since history and tragedy. Feel how miraculous we truly are, how fearfully and wonderfully made, a magical existence we get to explore:
“There are some things I know for certain: always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for luck, and fall in love whenever you can.”
Fall in love with life whenever you can. Write your letters, your hopes, your dreams, your devotionals, your spells, keep a testament of all that it is that makes you human. Seek to break curses more than start them. And lean in. Anyone who has found a coven, a sister, an ally, or a fellow curse-breaker, has found a gift.