Warning: This article contains major The Craft: Legacy spoilers.
If you think The Craft: Legacy has nothing new to offer after 1996’s The Craft, think again. Though it reads more as a loose remake than a sequel, writer/director Zoe Lister-Jones makes one major for the better: She takes the anger of a nasty teen boy and unpacks it to find his repressed sexuality. That’s right—the asshole bully in The Craft: Legacy is a scared bi kid, and that’s sort of incredible.
A little context for those who haven’t seen either film: Much like The Craft, The Craft: Legacy centers on four high school girls who practice witchcraft. This time around, the girls are named Lily (Cailee Spaeny), Frankie (Gideon Adlon), Tabby (Lovie Simone), and Lourdes (Zoey Luna). Their first targets for a spell is a mean boy at their school named Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine), who had been sexually harassing Lily since she got her period in class. Those who’ve seen The Craft will recall the original coven had a similar situation: Protagonist Sarah (Robin Tunney) hexed Chris (Skeet Ulrich) with a love spell after he spread rumors that she was a “terrible lay.”
The 2020 witches don’t quite cast a love spell on their bully. Instead, they invoke magic to “awaken Timmy to his highest self,” aka a “woke spell.” Suddenly, Timmy starts treating people with respect. He chastises his friend for making light of consent in sex-ed. He calls himself “cis-gendered.” He listens to Princess Nokia. He genuinely seems to like Lily and her friends, and they like him in return. What’s not to like? He’s fun, respectful, and, perhaps most shockingly, he’s honest about his feelings. He is, in other words, every teen girl’s fantasy of a perfect teen boy.
One afternoon, the girls and Timmy decide to play Two Truths and a Lie, a classic teen girl game where each player must say two things that are true about themselves, and one that is not. On Timmy’s turn, he says, “My mom gave me this [necklace], I’m a virgin, and, um, Isaiah and I hooked up.”
The girls start laughing at first, assuming it’s a lie—but they quickly realize it’s not when Timmy starts tearing up.
“I’m sorry, I just, I’ve never told anyone this before,” he says. “It’s like, Jacob is my best friend, and he would…”
“Have you and Isaiah talked about it?” asks Lourdes.
“Are you kidding me? He won’t even look at me since it happened,” Timmy says.
Then his face crumbles, and he drops his head in his hands. “It’s just… it’s felt good when it’s been with girls as well, so. It’s just hard for dudes. I feel like there’s no room to be… everyone assumes you’re just gay, and that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that at all, I just… I like both.”
The audience realizes in this moment that we’ve completely misjudged Timmy. Lister-Jones masterfully plays with expectations set by both the 1996 film and broader generalizations we tend to make about teen boys. Suddenly, in retrospect, so many things about Timmy’s behavior make sense: Compensating for his insecurities by acting aggressively heterosexual. Taking out his fear, anger, and loneliness on Lily. Striving to fit himself into the box that society expects him to slot into. None of that makes his behavior right—or even forgivable—but it does make it make sense.
Galitzine, a British actor who also appeared in the short-lived Netflix series Chambers, is pitch-perfect in his performance. He pivots from school asshole to raw, heartwrenching honesty like he’s flipping a switch. You can’t tear your eyes away from him. And though no one actually says the word “bisexual,” there is no doubt from his speech—which speaks to a struggle so many bi folks of all genders, but especially boys, know all too well—that is how he identifies. It’s more than just a refreshing change of pace from bi characters on TV and film who confidently declare they “don’t like labels.” It’s revolutionary.
To be honest, I’ve never seen anything quite like it in a mainstream American film before. It’s a scene that will stick with me for a long time, and one I wish I could have watched as a confused bi teenager years ago. It’s unfortunate, then, that Timmy meets a similar fate to his counterpart in The Craft, Chris. The Craft: Legacy, however unintentionally, falls into the tired “bury your gays,” trope. It doesn’t help that the larger plot comes with a muddled, unsatisfying ending. But though the movie as a whole may have disappointed, Timmy’s coming out scene is an undeniable grand slam out of the park. And if that one scene helps even just one confused bi teen, that’s a net win.
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October 29, 2020 at 10:32PM
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'The Craft: Legacy' Has A Bi Coming Out Scene I Wish I’d Seen As a Teen - Decider
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