The Witches of Eastwick

The Witches of Eastwick was released in 1987 and directed by George Miller. Rather than simply retelling the plot, the film is worth revisiting for the characters, conflicts and ideas that give its story its identity.

Family, Friendship and Parental protection emerge through what the characters face and the choices they make, giving the story more to explore beyond its immediate plot. Alexandra Medford, Jane Spofford and Sukie Ridgemont do not begin the film seeing one another clearly, and watching those first impressions break down is a big part of why The Witches of Eastwick still works.

Alexandra Medford, Jane Spofford, and Sukie Ridgemont are three dissatisfied women living in picturesque Eastwick, Rhode Island.

Sculptor Alex is a single mother of one, newly divorced music teacher Jane cannot have children, and Sukie has six and is a columnist for the newspaper Eastwick Word. That detail matters because it shapes the way the characters initially see one another.

The friends all have lost their husbands (Alex's died, Jane's divorced her, and Sukie's deserted her). From there, the film can concentrate less on explaining the setup and more on what happens between the people inside it.

Unaware of being witches, they unwittingly form a coven, meeting weekly to discuss ideal men.

A mysterious man buys the town's landmark property, the Lenox Mansion.

His arrival fascinates everyone except Felicia Alden, the religious wife of newspaper editor Clyde Alden, Sukie's boss.

She senses he (whose name is easily forgotten) is ill-intentioned.

One night, he appears at Jane's recital and makes a spectacle, leading to more gossip.

Receiving flowers from D sparks Sukie to remember his name is Daryl Van Horne.

Chaos over the name spreads through the crowd.

Sukie's pearl necklace breaks, the beads falling all over the floor, causing Felicia (who had mocked his name) to fall down stairs, breaking her leg.

The movie has more on its mind than the basic setup suggests. family sits close to the centre of the film, but it is explored through the characters rather than treated like a lesson.

friendship matters just as much. The film keeps challenging the assumptions its characters make about one another, which is where much of its emotional weight comes from.

There is also plenty here about parents protecting their children and loss. Those ideas overlap rather than sitting in separate boxes, which helps the movie feel like a story about people rather than a checklist of themes.

The film could hardly be separated from the decade that produced it. Released in 1987, it carries the attitudes, style and filmmaking rhythms of the 1980s without needing to announce them.

It also sits comfortably within the era's fantasy, female buddy, comedy horror, horror and comedy filmmaking, even if the movie itself is more interesting than any single genre label suggests. That is part of why it still appears in conversations about 1980s movies and 1980s fantasy movies. The film has become tied not only to its own story but to the wider memory of what 1980s movies felt like.

Watching The Witches of Eastwick now means seeing both what has lasted and what unmistakably belongs to 1987.

What still works best is the human material. Ideas around family, friendship and parents protecting their children have not stopped being relevant simply because the clothes, language and cultural references belong to another era.

Those choices are part of the film's identity, even when they make its age obvious.

Some moments inevitably land differently for a modern audience. Revisiting an older film properly means enjoying what still works without pretending every choice has aged equally well.

A large part of that staying power comes from the characters. Alexandra Medford, Jane Spofford and Sukie Ridgemont are still useful shorthand for the personalities and pressures the film explores.

Carpenter's film has lasted because people continue to recognise something in it. Nostalgia helps, but nostalgia alone does not keep a movie in the conversation for decades.