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Practical Magic
Year - 1998
Studio - Warner Bros.
Stars - Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing, Dianne Wiest, Goran Visnjic, Aidan Quinn
Director - Griffin Dunne
Writing Credits - Alice Hoffman (novel), Robin Swicord, Akiva Goldsman and Adam Brooks (screenplay)
Music - Alan Silvestri
Synopsis (AI Generated)
Sisters Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian Owens (Nicole Kidman) are raised by their eccentric aunts, Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest), after their parents' deaths. As children, they witness the family curse firsthand, which shapes how each sister approaches love. Sally tries to avoid the curse by marrying a "safe" man, Michael (Mark Feuerstein), but he's killed in an accident anyway, leaving her a widow with two daughters, Kylie (Evan Rachel Wood) and Antonia (Alexandra Artrip). Gillian, meanwhile, drifts through reckless relationships, eventually taking up with an abusive boyfriend, Jimmy Angelov (Goran Višnjić).
When Gillian calls Sally for help escaping Jimmy, the sisters accidentally kill him during a struggle after Sally slips him a sedative that proves fatal. Using a spell from Aunt Jet's cookbook, they resurrect him, but he comes back malevolent and violent, forcing them to kill him again, this time for good. They bury him in the backyard garden.
Jimmy's spirit possesses Gillian, and a suspicious police investigator, Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn), arrives to look into Jimmy's disappearance. Sally and Gary fall in love despite her fear of the curse. Eventually the possession becomes dangerous enough that Sally, Gillian, Frances, and Jet perform a exorcism ritual, aided by the town's other women, to expel Jimmy's spirit from Gillian's body, and his body is exposed buried in the yard, seemingly resolving the immediate danger with the local police.
The film ends with Sally choosing to embrace love despite the curse, reconciling with Gary, while the Owens family's history of witchcraft is publicly celebrated rather than feared by the town, with the aunts happily officiating Sally and Gary's wedding and the family performing their traditional midnight margarita ritual together.