Half Magic

[An] uneven but timely and quite funny feminist satire.

The film displays a sprightly tone and blissful sense of liberation in charting the exploits of characters seeking to live by their own feminine-centric rules.

Half Magic is hobbled by a debut director’s desire to be liked. But Graham’s passion is sincere, even if her tone and rushed pace — the byproduct of cramming in every idea in case she doesn’t get a second chance — teeters on sitcom.

As the writer-director's sly gaze shifts into an insistently upbeat appeal for female empowerment, the movie loses its comic steam.

Graham has crafted some decent monologues for her characters.... But, even at a hair over an hour and a half, the movie would benefit from a good trim, one that might give the movie’s parallel romantic stories more shape and snap.

You could say it’s toothless most of the time.

After sitting through this rather unpolished production as it lightheartedly bumbles its way around a serious subject, I mostly wished that I could un-see it. To say that Half Magic, in which Graham also stars, is half-baked would be kind.