Practical Magic 2 review: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman can't conjure old magic

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reunite as the Owens sisters in a sequel that revives the family curse. The film recaptures the cast's warmth but struggles to justify its nostalgia with deeper emotion.

In Short

• The sequel revisits the Owens curse when tragedy hits Sally's daughters
• Bullock and Kidman still share an easy, affectionate and convincing sisterly chemistry
• The screenplay leans heavily on nostalgia instead of deeper character development

There are some films you revisit because you miss the story. Others because you miss the people who made the story feel special. Practical Magic 2 belongs firmly in the second category.

Nearly three decades after Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman first played the Owens sisters, Sally and Gillian return to their Massachusetts home, their family curse and, inevitably, the kind of sisterly chaos that made the 1998 film a cult favourite. Directed by Susanne Bier, the sequel brings back Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing while shifting some of its attention to the next generation, particularly Sally’s daughters Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams).

The premise is simple enough: the curse that has haunted the Owens women is not quite as broken as they thought. When tragedy strikes the next generation, the sisters are pulled back into a problem they believed they had left behind.

It is a perfectly serviceable setup. The trouble is that Practical Magic 2 spends too much time reminding us why we loved the first film instead of giving us a compelling reason to love this one.

Bullock and Kidman remain the film’s greatest asset. Their chemistry hasn’t disappeared with time. Bullock’s Sally is still the more grounded of the two, while Kidman’s Gillian retains her mischievous, freewheeling energy. There is an ease between them that cannot be manufactured, particularly in the smaller exchanges where they slip back into the rhythm of sisters who have spent a lifetime irritating and protecting each other.

The problem is that the screenplay doesn’t always know what to do with that chemistry.

The original film was hardly a model of narrative precision, but its oddness was part of its charm. It was a strange mixture of romance, supernatural fantasy, sisterhood and grief that somehow held together because Bullock and Kidman gave the whole thing an emotional centre. The sequel seems to know this and tries to recreate the ingredients — the house, the curse, the eccentric relatives, the romance, the magic — without capturing the same looseness.

Too often, nostalgia becomes a substitute for character development.

The newer generation should have provided the film with an opportunity to expand the Owens mythology. Kylie and Antonia have their own lives, relationships and questions about the family legacy, but the film doesn’t always give those threads enough emotional weight. Joey King brings energy to Kylie, while Maisie Williams has a more understated presence as Antonia, but their relationship with their mother and aunt doesn’t quite reach the emotional complexity the premise promises.

There is also something oddly dated about the film’s understanding of romance. For a story rooted in female agency and a family of women who have spent generations pushing against the limitations placed on them, Practical Magic 2 occasionally falls back on the idea that romantic love remains the ultimate problem to solve.

That feels less like an intentional continuation of the original’s themes and more like a screenplay that hasn’t quite caught up with its own characters.

Bier, however, gives the film a polished visual identity. The Owens house remains as invitingly gothic as ever, and the production design understands that this world should feel whimsical rather than conventionally dark. The magic is best when it is intimate, tied to family rituals, memories and inherited knowledge, rather than when the film tries to manufacture spectacle.

And there is still warmth here. The reunion between Bullock, Kidman, Wiest and Channing carries genuine affection. You can feel the history between these performers, and occasionally the film stops trying to recreate a cultural moment and simply lets them be together. Those scenes are easily the most enjoyable parts of the sequel.

But that also makes the missed opportunity more apparent.

Practical Magic 2 arrives at a time when legacy sequels are increasingly asking audiences to revisit beloved characters without necessarily interrogating why those characters mattered in the first place. Here, the answer was never really the magic. It was the women.

The sequel remembers the spells, the house and the curse. It remembers the margaritas. It remembers the aesthetic. What it doesn’t quite recapture is the wonderfully messy emotional magic between them.

For fans, seeing Bullock and Kidman together again may be enough to cast a small spell. For everyone else, Practical Magic 2 is a pleasant but underpowered reminder that some magic works better as a memory.

Practical Magic 2 has released in Indian theatres.

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