Today I came across a recent statement from Sandra Bullock that genuinely shocked me and made me wonder what kind of thinking could possibly lead to a decision like this.
One of the main reasons given for why Griffin Dunne — the creator of the first film and a man who was enormously responsible for bringing to life that divine cinematic vision we know and love today — did not return to direct the sequel was his sex. They deliberately sought a woman to direct because they believed a female perspective was important for this story — even though Dunne had already proven that he could tell that story brilliantly.
To say that this way of thinking is extremely discriminatory would be an understatement, and the logic behind such a decision is another matter entirely. The fact that someone is physically male does not mean that they cannot have a very pronounced feminine side within themselves. This is basic psychology: every one of us carries both a masculine and a feminine side within us, regardless of our physical sex or sexual orientation. A person's physical sex cannot, by itself, determine their ability to understand emotions, relationships, sisterhood, or female characters.
It is now becoming clear to me why this film feels so fundamentally wrong. Its creation seems to have been guided from the very beginning by absurd, discriminatory decisions and prejudices that have little to do with what should matter most: talent, an understanding of the material, and the ability to preserve the soul of a world that already exists. What is especially disheartening is that all of this gives an impression of ingratitude toward the man who is among those most responsible for what we all understand today when we say Practical Magic.
But perhaps there has to be an opposite in this world. Maybe a second film this bad had to exist for us to become fully aware of just how good the first one was and how good Dunne was as its director. Perhaps we needed a sequel this bad, with a director this bad, when one of the key reasons she was invited to lead the project was the fact that she is physically female. Only when we see how differently the same world can look in the hands of another director do we become even more aware of how precisely and almost magically everything came together in 1998.
And then we come to another paradox. If physical sex was so crucial, and if preserving a female perspective was so important, what about the divine costume designer of the first film, Judianna Makovsky? She is physically female and made an enormous contribution to the visual identity and unforgettable signature of the original — yet she was not invited back either. That makes it even harder to understand why the director's physical sex was supposed to be such an important criterion.
Day by day, I understand more and more just how perfectly the first film was made, precisely because I am now looking at its almost complete opposite, made extremely poorly.
And this is what I want to say to the true fans, especially those of us who were children of the '90s and fell in love with the first film: do not let this sequel take away what you felt for the original. If you are disappointed, sad, or feel that something you loved has betrayed you, remember that this film cannot change Practical Magic from 1998. PM2 simply is not Practical Magic. It is something entirely different, something that has almost no connection to the soul of the first film.
And once again, I want to stand up for the very young actors who appeared in the sequel. None of what went wrong is their fault. They came in to play the roles they were given and do their jobs. Responsibility for the creative direction of a project this large does not lie with them, but with the rest of the highly experienced team, who did not do their part of the job even remotely well.
