Review of The Witches of Eastwick (1987) by Dawdlingpoet — 22 Nov 2021

This film combines a mix of fantasy, mild horror, mystery, comedy (relatively dark comedy at that) and drama - I suppose if anything its mostly a comedy drama, although it would also be fair to say that its a bit of a 'chick flick' as well, in as much as it features many female characters who are clearly good friends and are seen gossipping often. The main theme present in this film is obviously black magic, although sexual harassment does also play a part.

It is quite dialogue heavy and the plot pace seemed relatively slow to start with. However, the film does well to build a sense of mystery, so as a viewer your left wanting to keep watching, to try and discover why things are as they are. It may seem a bit mundane at first and there isn't a great deal of obvious comedy as such from the get go but it is present as the plot builds. I found myself giggling at times due to the social faux pas situations that ocurred. It'd be fair to say that there is a definite element of eccentricity present in some of the characters and I quite enjoyed that (primarily it applies to Daryl Van Horne).

Cast and character wise, Daryl Van Horne is played by Jack Nicholson, who portrays Daryl as a very flirtatious, suave yet perverse and creepy sounding middle aged guy. The other main characters include Alexandra Medford, played by Cher (the singer and actress), who seemed to (if anything) play her role a bit too strong, exaggerating her characters demeanour in a way that didn't entirely ring true to me, while Jane Spofford is played by Susan Sarandon and Sukie Ridgemont is played by Michelle Pfeiffer.

I felt some of the dialogue was borderline misogynistic or otherwise somewhat sexist at times, although I did feel that there was an element of irony used and that those who made such comments were hardly seen in an entirely positive light. The way that the local community are depicted with the various community events and so on I thought was quite nice - it certainly had a quirkiness to it. Suffice to say, this is hardly a film which should be taken seriously, or one that even seems to take itself seriously and I was fine with that personally. There are comedies (black comedy or otherwise) which are so 'off the wall' and fairly ridiculous in terms of the paper thin plot that I lose interest and can't watch all the way through but I felt that this film had a decent amount of mystery present for the majority of it and it thankfully didn't feature continual toilet humour and extremely graphic language (although there certainly are instances of very strong language present). It seemed a bit better thought out than some of the comedies I've seen and given up with (two recent examples being Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, which was beyond dire (in my humble opinion) and Your Highness, which was embarrassingly moronic and more immature than I'd even expected with my limited expectations to start with). The comedy is definitely less visual based and more dialogue based, for some of the scenes certainly.

Music wise, instrumental music is featured in various parts of the film, as a character is shown playing the instrument (a cello by the looks of things).

Content wise, this film features strong language, sex references, moderate violence and a few potentially distressing scenes which feature vomiting and the like. I wouldn't say its as upsetting as a few films I've seen in the past but its not ideal for anyone who is entirely squeamish I suppose. There is also a drug reference featured and multiple characters are shown drinking and smoking, so its maybe not ideal for youngish and impressionable teenagers to watch at a guess?. It carries an 18 rating, which surprised me given the fact that I've seen 15 rated films which were just as racy as this and I didn't feel the violence necessarily warranted the high rating - I can only put it down to the frequent sex references, plus a few instances where sex was clearly implied to be taking place if slightly off camera. I suppose it would be a bit embarrassing to watch with parents perhaps but then in the first half of the film, there were a good few scenes which barely featured any (to my mind certainly) explicit content but sexual promiscuity is certainly hinted at, if not shown in any sort of extreme detail (thankfully, some may think). Yes I'd recommend this film, as I felt it to be quirky and intriguing with some good characters and a decent amount of comedy, with some fairly witty dialogue. It is quite racy in parts with some graphic sex references and there are some distressing scenes featuring violence present but it isn't what I'd class as a major gross-out style film, it isn't exactly a slasher horror film, put it that way. I was semi-surprised it had been given an 18 rating and I can only put that down to the sex references, which are fairly explicit I suppose, hence I wouldn't actively encourage younger teens to see it but that aside, I'd say its worth a watch.