Double Feature: The Craft (1996) and Dick (1999)

Teenage witches and teenage Watergate whistleblowers

This is the first in a new series on trinket shelf called Double Feature, where I’ll offer up a pairing of movies that are related in some way, whether it be thematically or because of a shared director/actor/filming location. It will be a comparative lit vibe but for movies! You could watch this double feature as a B2B movie night or over the course of a weekend, or, in a perfect world, you could download both movies and do a plane ride double feature, which is the ideal situation to crush two movies in a row. Not sure how often I’ll do these but you can certainly look forward to more—it is so fun to think about movies in the context of other movies!

For the first installment of Double Feature we’re looking at two movies made by the same writer/director: 1996’s The Craft and 1999’s Dick, both created by Andrew Fleming. I watched both for the first time recently and was shocked to find that he was behind both; they tackle different genres and have vastlly different vibes. However, the similarities go deeper than their creator: both movies are about the power of teenage girls. In The Craft, it’s a literal, magical power as the film focuses on a group of witches coming to terms with their combined power and dealing with the consequences of it. The girls of Dick are much less aware of their power as they sort of accidentally take Richard Nixon down and provide proof of the Watergate Scandal after becoming the president’s trusted youth advisors/dog walkers.

Fleming’s attempt to chronicle the power of teenage girls is kneecapped in The Craft by his insistence that the girls are concerned primarily with being Nice. The third act goes completely off the rails when the girls’ fulfilled desires harden them, and their meanness is what undoes their friendship. It’s a disappointing display of misogyny, that these all powerful teenage girls must curb their wishes in order to be nice, and when one character, Nancy (Fairuza Balk), doesn’t, she’s punished for it in the movie’s disturbing final scene. And it’s really too bad! Because the first half of the movie rocks as we watch these four outcast girls find solace, sisterhood, and power in their communal pursuit of their desires.

Niceness is also a major priority for the girls in Dick, but it works better in this story. Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams) are driven to act against their beloved friend Richard Nixon (Dan Hedaya) because they realize he’s not a nice person and they believe he deserves to face consequences for his behaviors. In this way the girls need for niceness empowers them to be ruthless, rather than pushing them to relinquish their power. They push the expectation of niceness onto powerful men, uninterested in a double standard. While the movie doesn’t completely take the girls seriously—the girls are powerful and autonomous but seemingly on accident and in spite of themselves—it takes them exactly as seriously as all the other characters, especially Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the reporters of The Washington Post that famously broke the Watergate scandal. Woodward and Bernstein are catty and silly, blundering their way to success. Even Nixon himself is oafishly undone by two teenage girls who accidentally and repeatedly get him stoned.

Both movies also share a costume designer, Deborah Everton, which tracks, given that the costuming is iconic in both. The Craft dresses its girls in quintessential 90s gothwear, whereas Dick’s girls wear the most deliciously kitschy 70s outfits—and all the girls are impeccably accessorized. And I couldn’t help but notice that both were chock full of excellent Halloween costume ideas, if you’re looking for some inspiration.

if you see me wearing a beret with my trench coat this fall, you’ll know why

goth greatness in The Craft

In terms of double feature logistics, I recommend that you watch these in the order they were released - The Craft followed by Dick. I think Dick is a better movie (despite bombing both critically and in the box office) and you can see Fleming’s growth between them, but also Dick is like dessert after the upsetting third act of The Craft, it’s a funny and ridiculous little treat.