YEAH YEAH MUSICAL THING. WELCOME TO EARLY-2000S MOVIE HELL.
Young Witches was not a traditional stage musical, rather, a made-for-TV musical that premiered on a kids’ TV network and later developed a cult following among nostalgic twenty-somethings. Online fashion has started to cater to fans of the musical in recent years (lots of pastel jackets featuring witchy sayings being sold, i.e.), and there’s been talk of a made-for-TV sequel.
Plot:
Three girls are growing up in a small southern bayside city in the USA, in the mid-80s. They’re starting their first year at a local high school and have been friends since they were young. We meet them at the beach as they’re eating ice-cream and strolling along the boardwalk (“Miami, 1981″). One of them, Sylvia, is manifesting magical powers, as every woman in her family has done before her. She’s an earth witch, and she can control elements. Her two friends, Dolores and Lupita, are supportive of their friend’s gift even if they don’t have powers themselves. In the world of Young Witches, witching is like, a known profession. Being a witch is just as much a viable career path as being a cartoonist or lawyer or mailman.
Sylvia is nervous for her first day of school, as nobody knows about her powers besides her two best friends (“What If?”). Most witches start manifesting powers at middle-school age, but she doesn’t want to stick out. She’s especially scared of technomancers. Technomancers are witches who can manipulate technology, and earth witches and technomancers have centuries-old beef (nobody knows where the beef comes from, only there’s nebulous animosity).
It turns out Sylvia’s right to be scared, because the most popular ‘mean girl,’ Barbara-Anne, is a powerful technomancer. Sylvia inadvertently reveals her powers during a rowdy cafeteria food-fight (“Fatty Boom-Boom”), wherein, in the heat of the moment, Sylvia manipulates creamed corn to fly into Barbara-Anne’s face. She didn’t mean anything personal by it, but now Barbara-Anne thinks Sylvia is gunning to usurp her popularity and authority.
For the next few weeks, Sylvia, Dolores, and Lupita don’t hear anything from Barbara-Anne. They have a lot on their plates anyway. Dolores and Lupita are starting to get a little jealous of Sylvia, whose powers have caught the attention of a guy in their English class (Luke). There’s a school dance coming up, and all the girls want to go. Luke invites Sylvia, and Sylvia says yes. Dolores and Lupita are incensed and Sylvia is confused by their snubbing her. She was saying ‘yes’ to Luke because she was too much of a doormat to do otherwise. In reality, she had no romantic feelings for Luke, but wanted to be nice. Dolores and Lupita start making fun of Sylvia for her powers and for being stuck-up.
Meanwhile, Barbara-Anne is planning something devious for the dance. She’s building an army of robots to control the dance and make everyone like her ( “Fibonacci Sequence”).
The day of the dance comes. Both Dolores and Lupita have found dates, but still aren’t talking to Sylvia. Sylvia finds both of them and explains what happened. Right before they can forgive her and apologize for their own behavior, Barbara-Anne’s robots crash the party. It’s up to Sylvia and her friends to stop the robots from ruining their first high school dance. A battle ensues (“Fatty Boom-Boom”/“Fibonacci Sequence” mashup), and Sylvia and her friends defeat the robots not through magic, but cooperation and friendship. Luke is awed by the robots’ power, and immediately drops Sylvia to go hang out with Barbara-Anne. Everyone gets what they want– Barbara-Anne gets recognition, Sylvia gets her friends back, and Dolores and Lupita get to feel as if they’re important and contributing. The rest of the dance goes well, and after, Barbara-Anne, Luke, Sylvia, Dolores, and Lupita go out for ice-cream on the same boardwalk we saw at the beginning of the movie (“Such Great Heights”).
Wait, so part of the happy ending is that the bitchy insecure person wins the affections of the shallow person? I…. kind of like that, actually.
Mooncustafer 