Viewers are revisiting Practical Magic 2 with mixed feelings, praising its witchy nostalgia while questioning the film’s treatment of Antonia Owens. For queer audiences and readers of Alice Hoffman’s wider story, the sequel’s fleeting lesbian hints feel less like meaningful representation and more like a missed opportunity in a major studio release.

Essential Takeaways

  • Antonia’s identity is muted: The sequel hints at her attraction to women but never gives the storyline real space.
  • The book goes further: Alice Hoffman’s novel gives Antonia a more central role in the family’s magical and emotional journey.
  • Nostalgia isn’t enough: Fans have also noticed product placement, uneven romance and familiar sequel problems.
  • Representation needs clarity: A few brief looks can feel frustrating when a character’s queerness matters to the source material.
  • The wider context matters: Practical Magic 2 arrives during renewed interest in films centred on older women and female relationships.

The sequel keeps the magic, but loses something important

Practical Magic 2 still carries the soft-focus atmosphere that made the original so beloved: candlelit rooms, family secrets and a touch of old-fashioned witchcraft. But beneath the nostalgia, the treatment of Antonia Owens has left queer viewers cold.

As DIVA Magazine reported, Antonia is explicitly lesbian in Alice Hoffman’s novel The Book Of Magic. In the film, however, her sexuality is communicated through only a couple of brief glances towards another woman. The character’s possible love interest is unnamed on screen and identified only as Laura in the credits.

That’s a particularly thin thread for audiences expected to notice and celebrate. A character shouldn’t need a magnifying glass and a pause button to find herself in a story.

Antonia’s book storyline had much more weight

The difference between the novel and the film isn’t simply a matter of trimming a subplot. In Hoffman’s book, Antonia is closely involved in helping unravel the family curse, even while her own life follows a distinctly modern, queer path.

She enters a co-parenting arrangement with her best friend and his husband, becomes pregnant and develops a relationship with a woman named Ariel. Her circumstances mean she can’t join Sally and Gillian on every part of their journey, but she remains vital to the family’s understanding of its past.

CinemaBlend’s coverage of Antonia’s role also points to the character having a larger story in the source material. That makes the film’s decision feel more conspicuous, especially when the sequel is meant to broaden the Owens family rather than simply recreate the first film’s central chemistry.

Why a sapphic hint isn’t the same as representation

Maisie Williams has said she played Antonia as a “sapphic icon”, a choice that gives the performance an intriguing undertow. Yet acting a character as queer and allowing the audience to experience that queerness are two different things.

The problem is familiar. Big-budget films often preserve ambiguity when a romance between women could be made direct, emotionally specific and genuinely consequential. The result can look progressive in interviews while remaining almost invisible in the finished film.

CinemaBlend’s discussion of the sequel’s reception places this issue alongside broader frustrations about how franchise films handle character arcs and romance. When a film already has room for family drama, magical history and relationship conflict, cutting a queer storyline can feel less like necessity and more like a creative priority.

Practical Magic 2 is part of a bigger women-led conversation

The sequel’s casting has attracted attention because major releases still too rarely centre women in their forties, fifties and beyond. CinemaBlend’s deep dive into films starring middle-aged women highlights why Practical Magic 2 matters beyond its spell books and midnight cocktails.

That context makes the handling of Antonia even more disappointing. A film that foregrounds sisterhood, female inheritance and unconventional family bonds seems perfectly placed to make a lesbian character part of the story’s emotional fabric.

Instead, the sequel appears to keep its most interesting queer possibility at arm’s length. Meanwhile, viewers have also been discussing cinema-going frustrations and the difficulty of finding big releases that feel as distinctive as their marketing suggests, as CinemaBlend reported.

Can the Owens family still find a richer future?

There’s plenty to enjoy in the Practical Magic world, from its cosy visual language to the enduring appeal of Sally and Gillian’s bond. The original’s cultural afterlife has also kept details such as its famous midnight margaritas alive among fans, proving how strongly audiences connect with the series’ domestic, playful magic.

But affection for a franchise can make omissions more visible, not less. Queer viewers aren’t asking for a token glance or a suggestive pause. They’re asking for characters whose identities shape the story and whose relationships are allowed to be seen.

If the Owens family returns again, Antonia deserves more than a background moment and an end-credit name. She deserves the full spell.

It's hard to call representation meaningful when viewers can miss it in a second.

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