Practical Magic Ending Explained

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Practical Magic. When Practical Magic first hit theaters on October 16, 1998, it was not exactly welcomed as an instant classic. Reviews for Practical Magic were mixed, the box office was underwhelming, and that might have been the end of it. Instead, the movie kept finding people. Somewhere along the way, its witches, romances, midnight margaritas, and fall vibes turned it into one of the movies people come back to every October. Sandra Bullock's Sally Owens and Nicole Kidman's Gillian Owens are also a huge reason why. Sally is cautious and desperate for a normal life, while Gillian is impulsive and constantly running toward the next thing, but the movie never leaves much doubt that the sisters will show up for each other when it matters. Now, nearly three decades later, Bullock and Kidman reprise their role as Sally and Gillian in Practical Magic 2. Jet and Franny return too, while Kylie and Antonia have grown up and become a much bigger part of the Owens family story. With Practical Magic 2 continuing their story, that happy ending does not feel quite as final anymore. Sally leaves the movie with Gary and believes the curse is behind her, while Kylie and Antonia are finally being brought into the Owens family’s magic instead of protected from it. For Sally, that feels like an ending. For her daughters, it is really just the beginning. How Sally Got Rid Of Jimmy’s Spirit In Practical Magic’s Ending Sally & Her Aunts Used More Than Magic In Practical Magic, the Owens sisters were painted as opposites. Sally was careful, calm, and down-to-earth, while Gillian was larger-than-life and always searching for a new adventure, usually with a lover. Gillian left their aunt Frances and aunt Jet’s home as a young woman to be with someone, and had been traveling ever since. While Sally was settling down with her husband and two daughters, Gillian was with a Bulgarian named Jimmy Angelov, who likened himself to a cowboy. When Gillian called a now-widowed Sally looking for help after Jimmy hit her, Sally came to pick her up and bring her home. Unfortunately, Jimmy had other plans, taking them hostage before Sally accidentally killed him by putting too much belladonna in his tequila instead of the amount meant to sedate him. This kicked off a slew of surreal events, with a failed attempt to resurrect him to avoid murder charges leading to them killing him again and burying him in their aunts’ garden. However, Jimmy’s spirit never died in Practical Magic. He left little hints that he was still around, and eventually possessed Gillian. The Owens women had been ostracized from everyone else in their town because of their magical powers, but Sally was able to rally the townswomen to make a coven and help exorcise the violent Jimmy from Gillian’s body. It was a great display of the power of community and women in particular. Yet, when the exorcism seemed to be hurting Gillian as much as Jimmy, Sally interrupted it and came up with another plan. She lured Jimmy with tequila, only to cut Gillian’s hand as a younger Gillian had once done to her to form a blood pact. This brought Gillian back, and Jimmy was banished for good. In the end, Practical Magic showed that the blood bond between sisters was stronger than any magic, dark or otherwise. The Owens Women Curse Explained Was The Practical Magic Curse Real? At the beginning of Practical Magic, Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet explain the Owens women’s curse to a young Sally (Camilla Belle) and a young Gillian (Lora Anne Criswell). The story goes back three centuries to their ancestor, Maria Owens, who used magic to survive an attempted execution for witchcraft. However, Maria accidentally cursed the Owens women when she cast a spell to prevent her from ever falling in love again when the father of her unborn child abandoned her. From there on, every man an Owens woman loved was doomed to die prematurely. Sally and Gillian went to live with their aunts after their father died, causing their mother to also die of a broken heart. Despite her best efforts to never fall in love so she could avoid the curse, Sally's husband, Michael, died as well after being struck by a car. When an Owens woman hears or sees the Deathwatch beetle, they know their love will die shortly after. However, Aunt Jet didn’t believe in the curse, claiming the deaths were incidental. Whether she was saying this to avoid scaring the girls or not is unknown. However, Investigator Gary Hallet, who came to find out more about Jimmy’s sudden disappearance, later told Sally, “Curses only have power when you believe them.” Thus, it’s possible that the Owens women's belief in and fear of the curse in Practical Magic manifested it to come true. The Symbolism Of Gary’s Badge Explained Sally’s Speech On Magic Had A Deeper Meaning As aforementioned, Gary arrives in Practical Magic to investigate Gillian and Sally, whom he (rightfully) believes had something to do with Jimmy’s disappearance/death. While Gillian has no trouble lying to him, Sally, who eventually develops feelings for Gary, has a harder time. He knows they’re not being completely honest, and the rumors of their magic and the curse make him even more skeptical. At one point, Gary confronts Sally about being a witch, and she jokes with him about her magic. However, when he tells her about rumors of “devil magic,” Sally, who doesn’t like to use her powers and often looks down on magic, tells him, “there’s no devil in the craft.” Sally adds, “Magic isn’t just spells and potions,” and likens it to Gary’s police badge. She says to Gary: “It's just a star, just another symbol. Your talisman. It can't stop criminals in their tracks, can it? It has power because you believe it does.” These words seemed to touch Gary, and later on, when he came into Gillian’s room and saw Jimmy possessing her, the badge protected him. Jimmy had put his hand in Gary’s chest, intending to rip his heart out, but his badge burned a star-shaped hole in his hand, stopping him. When he realized this, Gary held the badge up, and Jimmy’s spirit evaporated temporarily. Sally’s Practical Magic speech about Gary’s badge had foreshadowed it saving him, reminding him that belief is the most powerful magic of all. Was The Curse Really Broken At The End Of Practical Magic? Sally Believed The Curse Was Broken When Sally learned about the Owens women’s curse in Practical Magic, she did what she could to try and protect her from it, just as Maria had tried to protect herself from ever being hurt again. She made a love potion, wishing for a man with highly specific and seemingly impossible characteristics, hoping he’d never show up and she’d be spared. However, she still fell in love with Michael, who was killed. On top of this, Gary seemed to be the man Sally had described as a young girl in her Practical Magic spell. She tried to push Gary away because of the curse, but that’s when he said his line about not believing in them. What truly broke the curse was Sally embracing her magic with the coven and saving Gillian with their blood bond. Sally had been running away from magic and the curse for so long, and when she finally stopped, she was able to break the Practical Magic curse. The film ends shortly after they get together, so whether the curse was truly broken was never fully tested, but Sally was sure of it. How Practical Magic’s Ending Set Up Practical Magic 2 The Ending Leaves Two Big Questions For The Sequel Credit: MovieStillsDB Practical Magic ends with Sally believing the Owens curse is finally behind her. She is with Gary, she has stopped hiding from magic, and Kylie and Antonia are included in the family’s Halloween celebration instead of being kept away from that side of their lives. They light candles and watch Sally, Gillian, Jet, and Franny jump from the roof in front of the entire town. For Sally, who spent years trying to give her daughters a life untouched by the Owens family’s history, that is a pretty major change. That ending leaves two things open for Practical Magic 2 - the matter of whether Sally was right about the curse being over, and what Kylie and Antonia’s lives look like after growing up around the magic she once tried to avoid. The sequel jumps ahead with both daughters now adults. Joey King takes over as Kylie from Evan Rachel Wood, while Maisie Williams plays Antonia, who was originally played by Alexandra Artrip. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman also return as Sally and Gillian, along with Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as Jet and Franny. Alice Hoffman had already taken the Owens family in that direction with The Book of Magic. Published in 2021, the novel follows Sally’s daughters as adults and pulls them much further into the family’s history with the curse. Practical Magic 2 makes several changes to the book, but Hoffman's story still gives the movie a pretty direct path forward. The Real Meaning Of The Practical Magic Ending Sisterhood & Belief Trump Everything Practical Magic can be a cozy fall movie, a witchy romance, or even a little bit of horror depending on what you come to it for, but the ending makes it clear that sisterhood is what holds the story together. Sally spends most of the movie trying to distance herself from magic and from the way people see the Owens women. By the end, saving Gillian forces her to stop running from both. Sally cannot get rid of Jimmy on her own. She has to turn to the same women in town who spent years gossiping about and avoiding her family, and together they form the coven that helps drive him out of Gillian. Even then, it is Sally’s bond with her sister that finally brings Gillian back. She cuts Gillian’s hand and recreates the blood pact they made as children, making their relationship just as important to Jimmy’s defeat as any spell. The final Halloween scene carries that idea through to the end. Sally, Gillian, Jet, and Franny openly dress as witches and jump from the roof while the town watches below, with Kylie and Antonia joining in the celebration. Sally is no longer trying to make herself or her daughters look separate from the Owens family. She finally accepts the magic, the women she comes from, and the sister who has been at the center of her life all along. That is what gives Practical Magic its real happy ending. Sally may believe the curse is broken, but the bigger change is that she no longer sees being an Owens woman as something she needs to escape. Practical Magic is a 1998 romantic fantasy film about sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, descendants of a long line of witches burdened by a curse that dooms the men they love. When Gillian’s abusive boyfriend dies and the sisters attempt to resurrect him, they unleash a dangerous supernatural force that forces them to embrace their family’s magic. Release Date October 16, 1998 Runtime 104 minutes Director Griffin Dunne