You know a film still has currency when it sparks the headline, “The Devil is a F**kboy: Revisiting ‘The Witches of Eastwick,'” with the subhead “Thirty years later, George Miller’s diabolical feminist parable feels relevant as hell. Gird your cherries.”

Meg shields writes, “Miller is a man of many talents: he wrote Babe; directed its weird and wonderful sequel; helmed the academy award winning Happy Feet franchise; and even served as producer and second unit director on the Sam Neil-starring sailboat thriller Dead Calm. In 1983, in between Mad Max sequels, Miller directed a segment for the Twilight Zone movie, which saw a bug-eyed John Lithgow feverishly trying to shoot a gremlin off the wing of a commercial airliner. Enamoured by his experience with Amblin Entertainment, and with an adapted screenplay of a recent work by American literary treasure John Updike in his possession, Miller made the (admittedly rocky) move to Hollywood. And so, we were blessed with The Witches of Eastwick.”

“Darryl is, categorically, a shit lord: oozing with faux feminist sympathy as greasy and insincere as his joke of a ponytail. He’s the kind of guy who takes gender studies courses just to hit on women; a sneezy alt-bro who uses disingenuous ‘wokeness’ as a buff for disarming sexual conquests.”

“Eastwick’s is a hazy, effortless magic,” she concludes, “whose exposition takes a backseat to the joyous interplay and collective power of female friendship. To ask for extrapolation is to fundamentally misunderstand Miller’s focus: a very real examination of toxic masculinity and sexual power dynamics, couched, deliciously, within occult ambiguity.