Half Magic has the benefit of being released at the perfect time. The entertainment world is clamoring to celebrate #FemaleFilmmakers, although whether that actually translates into significant ticket sales is hard to say when most of those films are still relegated to limited releases, and there is a simultaneous push for more female-centric stories. Unfortunately for first-time writer/director Heather Graham, Half Magic squanders its seemingly empowering premise. Rather than engage with its outrage at inequality within Hollywood or relationships, it operates in stale stereotypes, its satire exaggerated for cheap laughs and anything but funny.
Ostensibly about the friendship between three women who collectively learn how to unabashedly put their needs first, the film looks to grab the audience from their very first meeting. Honey (Heather Graham), an aspiring screenwriter, Eva (Angela Kinsey), a divorcee still trying to entice her ex-husband to return and Candy (Stephanie Beatriz), a “hope-ologist” who wants an exclusive relationship with her flaky boyfriend, each seek guidance in the form of a women’s empowerment session, which is essentially a room full of women shouting “Pussy! Pussy! Pussy!” and “Your bodacious tatas honor me and they honor you.”
Such a ridiculous, satirical beginning sets the film up to poke fun at stereotypical, largely ineffective and insubstantial feminism before revealing useful means by which women can build self-esteem and demand equality in the workplace and the bedroom. Sadly, Half Magic doesn’t develop beyond the idea that sexuality, and specifically a more equal dynamic in heterosexual relationships, is integral – for Eva and Candy, the only factor – in female empowerment. This misconstrued concept of feminist empowerment, added to the banal comedy, ensures that the film nullifies its own premise.
Honey is the film’s focal point and, unfortunately, the only one that Graham provides with a semblance of a fleshed-out character. As a development assistant in a bizarre relationship with Peter (Chris D’Elia), a misogynist action star who wants every script pitch boiled down to how many “sluts” will be stabbed, Honey consistently has her creative ideas (that tend to be kinder to women) dismissed as unmarketable and uninteresting by the same man who unceremoniously has sex with her in his office whilst parroting “I’m a dirty little slut” back to him. Thanks to Candy and some wiccan candles from her shop that supposedly grant wishes, Honey finds a more attentive lover in the form of Freedom (Luke Arnold), a ridiculous satire of a hippie druggie who is only an improvement because of the amazing sex and his blissed-out ability to listen to Honey and spout vague encouragement to tap into her feelings.
Honey, Eva and Candy (note the objectifying names) all rely on these candles for quick fixes to their romantic woes. When Candy finally seems to have made progress, having refused to do her boyfriend’s laundry while he’s staying with another woman, she too easily lets him back in when he returns admitting how much he likes her being dominant. Soon, she’s hokily sporting dominatrix gear. There’s little substantial commentary on the inequality these women experience when their justified fury is too quickly swept under the rug at the smallest acquiescence from the men in their lives. If they fail to hold the people in their lives to a higher standard, the strength of the film’s attempted feminist message founders along with them.
Graham’s attempt to incorporate her own experiences with Hollywood’s sexism is on the right track, providing personal insight into a rampant issue. Unfortunately, her script overwhelms the subplot with lesser developed characters. Comedy can certainly provide commentary on real issues, but Half Magic struggles to both set up genuinely comedic scenes and deliver a coherent message about female empowerment.
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