YMMV / Practical Magic

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Don't be afraid to fall in love. It's worth every bit of heartbreak and trouble.
  • Sometimes familial love is even more powerful than romantic love.
• Adaptation Displacement: Most people are familiar with the movie, not the book.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The townspeople's antipathy toward the Owens women is mostly based on superstition and bigotry, but the fact remains that the Owens women really do have magical powers, and are sometimes willing to use them in unethical ways, such as mind-controlling love spells.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • While exchanging stories about their love lives with her sister, Gillian mentions that Jimmy is "so much stronger than [her]". She thinks that means he'll be stronger than the curse, but it turns out to really mean that he is very dangerous.
  • What triggers Jimmy's violent temper? Gilly daring to point out that jelly doughnuts aren't technically cream-filled doughnuts.
  • When Gilly is removing her tiger's eye necklace from the car rearview mirror, she has no idea Jimmy is there until he suddenly yanks her into the backseat with him. Sally is then greeted with the chilling sight of her sister trapped in a headlock with an abusive man who demands she drive them to an unknown location.
  • In the midst of Jimmy's rambling about cowboys, he ominously heats his metal skull ring with his cigarette lighter before trying to brand Gillian. He would have succeeded if Sally wasn't willing to let go of the steering wheel to slap him away, threatening to drive him into a truck.
  • The implications of Jimmy being "very into sisters right now" are not pleasant.
  • It turns out that Gillian was not the first woman to be victimized by Jimmy Angelov. However, she may have been the first one to survive.
  • Gillian desperately tries to convince Jimmy that she loves him forever, but he doesn't believe her and tries to strangle her to death.
  • The sisters are so afraid that Sally will lose her children as a consequence of accidentally murdering Jimmy, they convince themselves that resurrecting him as a "dark and unnatural" creature is a good idea. Gilly acknowledging he's already dark and unnatural is supposed to be encouraging somehow.
  • The actual resurrection itself involves stabbing the milky pale eyes of his corpse with needles. No wonder Sally flinches away from the very idea.
    • That spooky spectral stare he sports sure makes you wish she kept her nerve though.
  • They realize just how incredibly stupid the idea of resurrecting a murderous sociopath is approximately two seconds after they succeed when Jimmy immediately attempts to throttle Gilly.
  Jimmy: I want you to be my wife; can you promise me that?
  • Jimmy's spirit is powerful enough to influence (the far more experienced) Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet. It's one of the first signs that using that necromantic resurrection spell has some steep consequences.
  • Sally makes a beeline to Gillian when she senses she's in trouble. She meets her daughters on the stairs, scared and confused, sobbing that they "didn't do anything". Sally rushes up to Gilly's bedroom and sees her unnaturally -and painfully- arch away from the mattress as Jimmy's spirit rises not from the grave, but from Gillian's body. His spectral form is unnaturally pale and dirt-stained, has mirror-silver eyes, and is accompanied by the sound of ghostly breathing. And that's not even mentioning how he plunges his hand through Gary's chest to cause what looks like the beginnings of a heart attack.
  • Fortunately, Gary's star-shaped badge protects him... by burning itself so deeply into Jimmy's hand it looks like it nearly hit bone.
  • Soon after Gary leaves (which has the same energy of a break up) it's Sally's turn to seek comfort from her sister... too bad Gilly turns out to still be possessed. Which Sally's finds out when Gilly licks her and echoes Jimmy's feeling of being "very into sisters right now".
  • Jimmy puts up quite a fight during the exorcism. Gillian thrashes around in pain as the women chant to the point where Sally yells at them to stop, afraid they're killing her. Possessed Gilly looks downright feral when she suddenly lunges at Sally (getting violently blasted back by the barrier) and when Jimmy is lured out with his favorite alcohol.
• Retroactive Recognition: A young Evan Rachel Wood as Kylie.
• Signature Scene: Midnight Margaritas!!! The influence of Jimmy's spirit causes them to have a blast... well, at least until the eerie part where the aunts start singing.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The whole movie exists because a woman was abandoned by her entire town, including the father of her baby (after they tried to hang her to death, mind you). This ultimately caused her such pain, she cast a spell that lasted for centuries in a misguided effort to protect her child from the anguish of love.
  • The aunts tell the history of their ancestor as way to explain to their nieces why the town is so hostile to them. Aunt Frances sounds so despondent when she says the town doesn't hate them, they're just... different. Poor Gillian getting pelted by rocks and slurs by kids whom she merely invited to play with only undercuts the point.
    • One of the first things Sally says about her happy life with Michael is that no one taunts or throws stones at her anymore.
  • The lovelorn lady has it bad for the man who apparently won't leave his wife for her. One can only wonder how such an incautiously-worded wish turned out...
  • When young Sally is casting a spell for her true love, she reveals how deeply her mother's death has affected her:
  Sally: The guy I dreamed up doesn't exist. And if he doesn't exist, I'll never die of a broken heart.
  • Sally tears up a good chunk of the floorboards in a desperate effort to save her beloved husband from doom. It doesn't work.
  • Sally demands the aunts resurrect her husband from the dead, refusing to listen to their gentle-yet-solemn reminders that even if he was brought back, he would be a monster. They can only watch in mournful silence as their niece dissolves into heartbroken tears.
    • And how does Sally know about this spell?
  Sally: I know you can [bring him back], I remember, I found it here when mommy and daddy died."
  • Mired in depression since her husband's death, Sally struggles to respond through the apathy when her daughter checks in on her.
  • The first words out of her mouth when Gilly visits is "I was really, really happy". Her apathy crumbles into a flood of tears as she sobs in her sister's arms.
  • The children of the town have inherited the nasty tradition of slinging slurs and stones at the Owens girls. Sally tries to mediate, but only succeeds in alienating her daughters, who can't understand why their mother refuses to use her magical abilities.
  • Sally senses Gilly's despair the second she hears the phone ring. When she finally reaches her sister, she finds the normally-carefree Gillian hiding in a dark corner with running makeup and an awful black eye. Gilly may say she's fine, but the tears still present on her face and her rush to escape reveal the truth.
  • Gillian is plainly terrified when she's trapped in the backseat with Jimmy. She presses herself into the opposite car door in an effort to put as much space between them as possible. When he wraps an arm around her and yanks her closer, she flinches and looks a blink away from crying.
  • All Gilly wanted was to escape a violently abusive boyfriend. She didn't intend for the whole rest of the movie to happen.
  • As Jimmy's spirit starts to haunt her, Gilly seems so scared and out of her depth.
  Gilly (whispering): Jimmy, is that you?.... Jimmy... go away. Go away.
  • Kylie says she can't wait to fall in love.... unwittingly echoing Gillian when she was younger. Gilly stops was she's doing and gently warns her niece to be careful. With tears welling in her eyes, she explains that love can be wonderful, but it can also blind someone so they can't see when they're about to get hurt.
  • Tensions are high when Officer Hallet is blatantly suspicious of the sisters. Sally calls Gilly selfish, Gilly lets out built-up resentment that Sally is wasting the natural talent Gilly wishes she had, and Sally caps it off by telling her sister not only that she wants her to leave, but that she's going to march straight to Officer Hallet and confess what really happened to Jimmy. Gilly appears physically pained by their fight, which may indicate that Jimmy's spirit took advantage of her vulnerability to fully possess her.
  • Poor Gillian looks terrible when she's fighting off Jimmy's spirit within the coven circle. Pale and feverish, she weakly calls out to Sally as the women take their places.
  • When Jimmy forces Gillian to throw herself against the barrier, she's violently blasted back. Sally is terrified to tears for her safety and throws herself on the floor as close as she can get to her sister without crossing the barrier. Sally repeatedly begs Gilly to stay with her as the poor woman, between tired sobs, is tempted to succumb and let Jimmy take her because then he'll leave her family alone.
  Sally: Don't die on me, Gilly Owens, please? 'Cause we're supposed to die together, remember? At the same time, you promised me that, and this is not that day!"
  • The women who have scorned the Owens sisters all their lives are brought to tears by the raw love and pain they witness.
  • Aunt Jet and Aunt Frances hold each other tight in sisterly sympathy as they listen to the above. They love their nieces so much, but the exorcism isn't working.