FILM REVIEW: Enchanted

Every little girl (and big girl) has a favorite Disney princess. They wish they could waltz at a grand ball in glass Manolos, or befriend seven personality-specific dwarves, or even have a prince awake them from a deep slumber with a kiss. But times have certainly changed. The heroines of little girls today are feisty like Fiona (Shrek), unapologetically brilliant like Hermione (Harry Potter) and courageous like Claire (Heroes). Most importantly, a majority of them aren’t cartoons.

Enchanted’s mixture of animation and live action was an ingenious depiction of how Giselle (Amy Adams)—a helpless damsel in distress, simply in search of a prince to love and protect her—evolves into a determined, self-sufficient heroine who doesn’t need a knight in shining armor to sleigh a dragon. When we first meet the animated Giselle, Prince Edwards (James Marsden) saves her life. He proposes to her and she accepts. As she's rushing to the palace to marry him, his wicked mother Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who refuses to relinquish the throne to her son, gets her evil henchman, Nathaniel, to push Giselle into a well that leads to New York City. The only kind stranger she meets is Robert (Patrick Dempsey), a tightly-wound widower with a daughter, Morgan, and a girlfriend, Nancy (Idina Menzel), who is eager to marry.

Giselle’s progression is mirrored by Robert’s throughout the film. While he clues her in to how “the real world” works—no breaking out into song or dancing in the street or taking free food from strangers (who are trying to kill you)—she teaches him how to loosen up and have fun for once. Unlike most romantic comedies, these lovers change each other. By the end, she has him waltzing and singing, and manages to climb the Empire State building King Kong-style to save him from the dragon form of Queen Narissa, turning him into the damsel.

The intentions of the story were very well-conveyed. I especially liked the allusions to other princess stories, like Snow White—when the animals of the city (rats, pigeons, and cockroaches) swarmed the apartment to tidy up—and Sleeping Beauty—when he uses a kiss to awake her from Queen Narissa’s deadly spell. I also loved the addition of the devoted squirrel who followed her all over the city, making sure she was safe, and the oblivious and hopelessly naïve Prince Edward, played perfectly by the under-appreciated James Marsden. Not to say that Amy Adams wasn’t superb—yet another overly-enthusiastic childlike character impressively portrayed.

I only wish they hadn’t copped out for the perfect magic Disney ending that usually makes no sense whatsoever. SPOILER. Because Robert falls for Giselle, and vice versa, Edward resolves to take Nancy back with him—not that she’s fighting him off—and they live happily ever after. Okay, so it’s not like I actually believed Giselle could cross dimensions into ours from a story book, but I find it even harder to believe that a modern city girl would be okay with going to a fairytale land where she has to be subservient and constantly stalked by talking nature and is deprived of cable, Internet access, and, oh yeah, any of her friends. Give me a break. But it made $258 mil worldwide so I guess "evolved bubbly heroine" trumps "completely implausible, neatly tied-up ending."