Satire saps ‘ The Craft’ sequel’s spell
The Craft: Legacy Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, crude and sexual content, language and brief drug material. Running time: 97 minutes. Available on video on demand. 6
out of 4
61⁄
While “The Craft: Legacy” is a sequel to 1996’s “The Craft” — and is once again about four high school girls who form a coven — the results are a little different this time out, and so is the point of the movie.
Zoe Lister-Jones, who made the interesting 2017 film “Band Aid” about marital discord, is the writer and director, and she sets out to make a feminist statement with “The Craft: Legacy” through unconventional means. The results are interesting, but mixed.
In the previous Andrew Flemingdirected film starring Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk and Rachel True, the idea was that witchcraft, though it can bring some temporary dividends, is dangerous. Things can easily get out of control, particularly when the people trying to do the controlling are teenagers. So, in a sense, “The Craft” used the subject of witchcraft for what was ultimately a conventional moral message.
To instead use the subject of witchcraft for a movie about wom
en’s empowerment has some appeal, but only up to the point where you start asking yourself what’s the ultimate source of the power being sought. Basically, Lister-Jones is asking us to hold in our heads two seemingly contradictory ideas: that these powers are coming from the dark side, from what are essentially evil forces; and that these forces are being used to promote a social good.
From an anti-feminist point of view, there would be no contradiction at all. An anti-feminist might watch “The Craft: Legacy” and
think, “That’s perfect. They’re harnessing the powers of darkness to promote a social evil.” But that’s not the point of this movie. The movie’s point is the complete opposite of that, just confused.
At the start, young Lily (Cailee Spaeny) and her mother (Michelle Monaghan) are moving into Mom’s boyfriend’s house. Mom is ecstatic to have a new man in her life, and at first the guy (David Duchovny) seems all right. But he has a peculiar career. He writes books in praise of masculinity (“The Hallowed Mascu
line”) and lectures around the country, encouraging men to be manly.
Lily starts school and is humiliated on her first day when she has a menstruation mishap. But three girls (played by Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone and Zoey Luna) take her under their wing. They’re aspiring teenage witches, and they intuit that Lily might be their “fourth.” Having four members — representing air, fire, water and earth — makes them exponentially more powerful.
They put a spell on the biggest jerk they know, Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine), who normally does everything he can to make their lives miserable. All at once he becomes courteous and deferential, and he starts describing himself as “cisgendered” and talking about “heteronormativity.” He starts playing Princess Nokia music at parties because he admires her politics.
All this is mildly funny, but in a way that turns the movie back on itself. Are we supposed to see Timmy as a satire of wokeness or as an evolved version of himself?
At one point, the movie suggests that the spell is unlocking this boy’s real self, which, in terms of character, has a certain interest. But the satire pulls things in the other direction.
Ultimately, it’s more dramatically rich for Lily and her friends to be wrestling with their own impulses and their own hard-to-manage powers than it is for them to find themselves struggling with a supernaturally charged version of “toxic masculinity.” By focusing on the latter, Lister-Jones bypasses some potentially fruitful exploration of character in favor of a conflict with a foregone conclusion.
Still, this is the sequel to “The Craft,” folks. For what it is, the movie’s OK, except that it tried to be more than it is, and it isn’t.