How Sandra Bullock’s Face Makes Her New Hit Movie Unwatchable

I have always loved Practical Magic . I saw it in theaters in 1998 with my mom and sister, and it has stayed with me ever since. I may or may not live in the Pacific Northwest partially because of Practical Magic, which is set in Massachusetts but filmed in Washington. My wardrobe, hair, and cluttered home are all influenced by the Owens sisters. I watch the movie frequently, especially when I'm depressed or sick. It always makes me cry.

I saw the sequel, Practical Magic 2 , this weekend with my coven (two friends) and a theater full of women (and by my count, two men on dates). The audience audibly tittered during romantic moments, laughed at the sisterly banter, and clapped as the credits rolled. By the end of the weekend, it had unseated Spider-Man: Brand New Day as the number one movie at the box office with a $30 million haul.

There are a few reasons why it didn't hit for me. As Obsessed's Nick Schager outlined in his review , the script is clunky. I was willing to forgive the confusing timeline; the movie is almost 30 years old, and yet the girls from the first movie, who appeared to be about eight and 10, are only in their twenties now.

I get why it may make sense to recast beautiful 39-year-old Evan Rachel Wood, who played Kylie in the first movie, with (also beautiful) 27-year-old Joey King so we can watch a 20-something Kylie fight for her first love.

Beyond that, there are too many unnecessary special effects, and the soundtrack was pandering—I love the new Olivia Rodrigo album, but the climax set to "The Cure" didn't fit, and Alan Silvestri's soaring theme from the first movie, which is only heard during the denouement, didn't tug the heartstrings as it would have if it were woven throughout the film.

However, the main reason the second movie didn't move me was because of Sandra Bullock's unmoving face.

As Schager said, "Bullock is less than wholly expressive." But I don't think this is bad acting on Bullock's part. In the first movie, she played Sally Owens with a deadpan humor layered over deep grief. That worked for the tone of the role, especially in contrast with Nicole Kidman's Gillian, who is far more ebullient and dramatic.

Sally, who again is the protagonist of the ensemble film, is supposed to be uptight and repressed. In fact, an important plot point in the sequel involves Lee Pace's character helping stoic Sally "unblock" her magic. He places a hand over her heart and, after a random special effect ripple and instrumental flourish, he says, "That should do it," meaning that Sally is now free of her constraints. But there was no visible change in Bullock.

Bullock, who is 62, appears to have botoxed, lifted, or otherwise plasticized her gorgeous face into a mask of her former self, transforming her into a Madame Tussauds wax statue of Sandra Bullock. We can tell who she's supposed to be, but it's not quite right.

Sally's massive witchy power and emotion that surges through her can't ever leak out, not even when her daughter is in mortal peril or when she's falling in love with suave Pace (cue lady in my theater letting out a "woo!").

In Pace's scenes, I found myself staring into the crevasse that is the one line running between his eyes, which conveys a pathos and longing I first fell in love with during Pushing Daisies , nearly 20 years ago. Pace is 47, meaning we have a 15-year age gap here. Yet Bullock's uncanny agelessness muddies the believability of them as a couple not because of their age difference but because she can no longer convey chemistry.

In contrast, when the camera was on Bullock, I felt like Nathan Fielder in the Elizabeth Holmes documentary , staring into an emotionless, wrinkle-free face, not believing that the words coming out of Bullock's mouth could possibly be true. The lack of eyebrow musculature robs her performance of any nuance, which forces her to play up physical comedy (which she's still great at) and rely heavily on the weak script and effects to carry her through.

Nicole Kidman's face moved ever so slightly more, and she had less of an acting challenge, a playful sprite to Bullock's stoic mom in crisis. But Kidman certainly doesn't look 59. Dianne Wiest looks more ethereal than ever while still looking her age (78). Stockard Channing, 81 and looking like she's had some work done too, is at least allowed a wild river of white in her hair.

In the first movie, the "old aunts" played by Channing and Wiest were in their early fifties, had hair streaked with gray and wrinkles mapping expressive topographies on their faces. How the times have changed…

The double standard here is clear: Pace gets to have a wrinkle between his eyebrows, but Bullock doesn't. It's not fair that Bullock feels like she has to look like she did in her mid-thirties. I believe people should have body autonomy and do whatever they want to make themselves feel good and, in the case of these actors, to survive in a brutal industry.

But on the other hand, catharsis should be a primary job of art and the artist. I cry during the first movie because I identify with Sally's heartbreak and feel empathy for her. An actor's responsibility is to help the audience feel feelings, to give them an outlet for grief, love, and longing. If I can't read an actor's face, I cannot feel what they want me to feel.

Of course, it may be that I'm just being petty, judging other women on their appearance instead of, as the movie tells us to do, banding together with my fellow witches to overcome patriarchal systems that aim to harm us.

I'd like to think I'm giving permission, not that anyone asked me, for actors to age gracefully, to show us a mirror of what a long life actually looks like, not the overly-smooth facade Hollywood thinks we want to see.

The women/witches in the Practical Magic universe have an enviable connection to nature, each other, and their own selves—their love is real and deep. I wish I had the power to see that real, deep love play out on their faces.

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