Practical Magic
The Owens women are witches in whom the Craft has been passed down through every generation into modern times. The story concerns sisters Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest), and their orphaned nieces Gillian (Nicole Kidman) and Sally (Sandra Bullock). The Owens family is cursed: if an Owens woman finds true love with a man, he will die tragically, as was the case with the father of Gillian and Sally, whose death also brought on their mother's death "from a broken heart," which can be understood as suicide. As a child, Sally casts a true love spell to protect her. She dreams up a series of odd traits for the man of her dreams, confident no real man could ever be like the man in her spell, preventing her from ever falling in love.
The sisters grow up, and Gillian runs away as she is impatient with small town life. Packing her bags and leaving at night, they cast a binding oath to each other using blood from both of their hands and then mixing the bloods by clasping hands. Without Gillian around, Sally feels lonely and craves a normal life. Her aunts, wanting her to be happy, cast a spell that helps Sally fall in love with a man named Michael. Sally marries him and has two daughters, Kylie (Evan Rachel Wood) and Antonia (Alexandra Artrip). When Michael falls victim to the curse and dies, Sally and her daughters return to the Owens home to live with the aunts.
When Gillian's latest boyfriend Jimmy (Goran Višnjić) turns abusive, she calls Sally for help. Sally goes to collect Gillian, but Jimmy kidnaps both of them. Sally puts belladonna into Jimmy's tequila to knock him out, but she uses too much and accidentally kills him. The panicked sisters attempt to resurrect him using a forbidden spell from their aunts' book of spells. The spell works, but when Jimmy is revived, Sally is forced to kill him a second time to stop him from killing Gillian. The sisters bury his body in the Owens home garden, where they hope nobody will notice, but his spirit begins to haunt them.
A State Investigator named Gary Hallett (Aidan Quinn) arrives in town looking for Jimmy. Gillian prepares a banishment spell using the syrup from their table to get rid of Gary, but Sally's daughters thwart the spell when they notice that Gary fulfills a number of conditions of Sally's true love spell. Sally confesses that she killed Jimmy, and that she cast a spell to summon Gary to her. Gary has an encounter with Jimmy's ghost, and decides to leave town without arresting Sally.
Jimmy possesses Gillian, and the aunts decide that in order to dispel Jimmy, a coven needs to be formed (nine women, "twelve's better"). Sally is forced to ask the aid of townswomen who had feared and excluded her. The women come out of curiosity and a desire to help. The exorcism is a success due to the strong bond between the two sisters. Jimmy's spirit is dispelled and the 300-year-old curse of the Owens women is ended when Sally repeats the spell that was mentioned as Gillian first left while clasping their hands to mix each other's blood once more. The spell is lifted and Gillian returns.
Sally receives a letter from Gary that she and her sister are cleared of any suspicion of wrongdoing in Jimmy's case. Gary eventually returns to the town to be with Sally. The Owens women, daughters and all celebrate All Hallows Eve dressed up in stereotypical witch costumes, but they are embraced and welcomed by the townsfolk.
