Stephen Gresham’s Abracadabra (1988) manages to be about something even worse than the unholy child/clown alliance: the child/magician union. Meet eleven-year old Olivia Jayne Smith, known as Juice, who loves magic. Juice dances around like a beam of sunshine, dusting her sentences with adorable phrases like “Gosh o’Friday” and “Crime-a-nitly.” By the time her alcoholic mom calls her “little bitch mouth,” you’re kind of on Mom’s side.
