Three women, one devilish visitor
The Witches of Eastwick is a comedy-fantasy with a deliciously dark heart. In the small New England town of Eastwick, three divorced friends — Jane Spofford, a music teacher played by Susan Sarandon; Alexandra Medford, a sculptor played by Cher; and Sukie Ridgemont, a journalist played by Michelle Pfeiffer — spend their Thursday evenings drinking, gossiping, and fantasising about the perfect man. When Daryl Van Horne, a flamboyant stranger played by Jack Nicholson, arrives in town, their fantasies seem to come true, and they discover, to their delight and horror, that they have real, supernatural power.
Sarandon’s Jane is the quietest of the three at the start, and that is precisely her strength. Jane is a prim, repressed music teacher, recently divorced, who plays the cello and lives a careful, orderly life. Sarandon plays her with a wonderful mixture of shyness and wit: Jane laughs at her friends’ jokes, blushes at their frank talk about sex, and hides a sharp intelligence behind her polite manners. When Daryl unleashes her power, Jane’s transformation is the most satisfying of the three, because she has the furthest to travel.
Music, magic, and mischief
Director George Miller, best known for the Mad Max films, directs The Witches of Eastwick with a showman’s energy. The film is full of spectacular set pieces: a tennis match played in a storm, a church service disrupted by uncontrollable laughter, a cherry pit that chokes a rival, and a bedroom scene in which the three women, united in fury, turn Daryl’s own magic against him. Sarandon is superb in these sequences because she plays them as if they were real. Jane does not wink at the audience when she levitates or when her cello plays itself; she is astonished, thrilled, and a little frightened, and that sincerity makes the comedy work.
Jane’s musicality is central to Sarandon’s performance. She plays the cello in the film, and her scenes at the instrument are filmed with care and respect. Music becomes a metaphor for Jane’s inner life: disciplined on the surface, passionate underneath. When Daryl seduces her, he does so partly through music, playing with her, challenging her, and encouraging her to let go. Sarandon and Nicholson have a delightful, teasing chemistry, all raised eyebrows and double meanings, and their scenes together are among the film’s funniest.
The friendship between the three women is the film’s real subject, more than Daryl or the magic. Cher, Sarandon, and Pfeiffer work together like a true ensemble, finishing each other’s sentences, defending each other against the town’s gossips, and, in the climax, joining forces to banish Daryl from their lives. Sarandon’s Jane is the group’s conscience and its secret rebel. She is the one who most clearly understands what they are giving up when they give in to Daryl, and the one who most clearly enjoys the power when they take it back.
A hit with a sting in its tail
The Witches of Eastwick was a commercial success and a critical hit, praised for its performances, its wit, and its feminist undertow. Beneath the comedy, the film asks serious questions about female power, male manipulation, and the price of independence. Daryl offers the women everything they say they want — attention, pleasure, freedom — but he wants control in return. Their final victory is not to destroy him, but to refuse him, to choose each other and their own lives over his seductive bargain. Sarandon plays that choice with quiet authority. Jane does not need to shout to be powerful; she simply stops listening to Daryl, and that is enough.
For Sarandon, the film came at a pivotal moment. She was in her early forties, an age when Hollywood often narrows women’s roles, and The Witches of Eastwick proved she could be a leading lady in a major studio hit, funny, sexy, and commanding, without playing a conventional romantic heroine. It also paired her with Nicholson, with whom she would share the screen again in later years, and it showed her gift for ensemble comedy, a gift that would serve her well in films like Bull Durham the following year.
The film’s production was famously demanding, with elaborate special effects and a long shoot, but the finished film feels light and effortless. That lightness is a tribute to its three stars, and to Sarandon in particular. She makes Jane’s journey from repressed teacher to confident witch look like the most natural thing in the world, and she does it without ever losing Jane’s essential decency.
Why Jane endures
Jane Spofford endures because she represents a particular kind of liberation: not the loud, public kind, but the private, personal kind. Jane does not become a different person when she discovers her power; she becomes more herself. She still plays the cello, she still cares about her friends, and she still has manners, but she is no longer afraid of her own desires. Sarandon captures that balance perfectly.
For modern audiences, The Witches of Eastwick remains a joyful, slightly wicked entertainment, and Jane is its secret weapon. She is funny, she is brave, and she is, in the end, the most grounded of the three witches. Sarandon’s performance reminds us that power does not have to look like shouting or spectacle. Sometimes it looks like a quiet woman picking up her cello and playing, on her own terms, for herself.
Jane’s story also rewards a second viewing, when Sarandon’s small choices become clearer: the hesitant smile, the careful way she holds her cello, the moment she stops apologising for wanting more. Those details build a character who is funny and moving at once, and they show why Sarandon was never merely part of an ensemble here, but one of its essential, grounding forces.