Dayle Loves This: Practical Magic (movie)

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Welcome to Dayle Loves This, wherein I recommend books, TV, and movies (and maybe other things) that rocked my world.

If they don’t rock your world, that’s okay. We all have reader/watcher cookies as well as triggers. If you have questions, go ahead and ask. And please make your own suggestions, and discuss!

I don’t know about you, but I have comfort movies and books and TV shows that I rewatch/reread regularly, often at certain times of the year. For example, I love mythic fiction in the darkest days of winter.
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I don’t necessarily watch the same movie every year at the same time, because that would end up feeling more like checking off something on a to-do list. (Although goodness knows, I fucking love crossing items off to-do lists. Yes, I’m one of those people who will do something and write it down just so I can cross it off.) Plus every year is different; I might be busier, or away from home, or whatever.
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All that said, Practical Magic is my October movie.
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I remember when I saw it in the theatre, where I was and who I was with (visiting my bestie in Virginia). I still get weepy during the same scene near the end. I’ve read the book, which added some helpful details, but the movie is my jam, a million times over. I remember buying the soundtrack, and how every song evoked a moment, a scene, an emotion—and still does.
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It’s about two women—Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, both utterly luminous—who grew up under the care of their aunts—Stockard Channing (embodying everything I want to be) and Dianne Wiest—all of whom are witches. The house they live in is beyond glorious. (The exterior was built for the movie and then torn down, which shatters me. I would be happy just living on the porch.)
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Gillian (Kidman) can’t wait to escape the small island she’s been raised on. Sally (Bullock) loves it, and falls in love…only to hear the death beetle beneath her floorboards. She and her daughters move in with the aunts, proclaiming things will be different.
They are, and they aren’t. Gillian comes back to save her, but then Sally has to save Gillian.
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There’s romance, yes, but the movie is primarily about women’s relationships with and love for each other. It’s about sisterhood, both by blood and by heart. It’s about grief and healing and living again, made possible by the love and sisterhood. It’s about prejudice, love, magic, darkness and light, prophecy both positive and negative.
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Some people are magic.
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All people are magic.
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Dayle’s heart needs this Practical Magic almost every year, and she hopes your heart is also taken with it.

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