Enchanted arrived in 2007 with a problem built into its premise: a Disney princess who walks into modern Manhattan and finds out that “happily ever after” does not apply. The film, directed by Kevin Lima and written by Bill Kelly and Rita Hsiao, turns that joke into a live-action/animated musical fantasy comedy, and it mostly works because Amy Adams plays Giselle without a trace of irony.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
Giselle Leaves Andalasia
The setup is pure fairy tale. In the animated kingdom of Andalasia, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) will lose her throne the moment her stepson, Prince Edward (James Marsden), marries. So she gets rid of his bride-to-be. Disguised as an old hag, she pushes Giselle into a well, and Giselle emerges in Times Square as a live-action woman, frightened and overwhelmed.
Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey), a divorce attorney at Churchill, Harline & Smith LLP, and his six-year-old daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey), find her. Morgan believes she is a princess; Robert does not. He lets her stay in his apartment anyway, at Morgan’s insistence.
Edward jumps down the well after her, along with Giselle’s chipmunk friend Pip. Both emerge in Times Square as live-action versions of themselves. In the real world, Pip cannot speak.
Amy Adams Carries the Joke
Lima has said the studio wanted a star and he insisted on a lesser-known actress. Out of roughly 300 actresses who auditioned, Adams won him over. His reasoning, as reported, was that she looked the part and that her commitment to the character was overwhelming.
That casting is the whole film. Adams plays Giselle as eternally optimistic and romantic, but also independent and true to her convictions, and she never winks at the audience. Dempsey’s Robert is the opposite: a divorce attorney who stopped believing in true love after his wife left him and Morgan. Marsden plays Edward as pure, simple-minded and innocently narcissistic, which is funnier than it sounds.
The voice cast does quiet work. Julie Andrews narrates. Jeff Bennett voices Pip in Andalasia; Lima himself voices Pip in New York. Teala Dunn voices Bunny, and Emma Rose Lima voices Bluebird, Fawn and Rapunzel.
A Disney Film That Parodies Disney
Enchanted is both homage and self-parody, mixing live-action filmmaking, traditional animation and computer-generated imagery. It was co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Josephson Entertainment and Right Coast Productions. The animated sequences were produced at James Baxter Animation in Pasadena; the live-action scenes were shot around New York City.
It also marks the return of traditional animation to a Disney feature after the company moved entirely to computer animation in 2004. Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz wrote and produced the songs, and Menken composed the score.
The film premiered at the London Film Festival on October 20, 2007, and went into wide release in the United States on November 21.
Here is what holds up and what does not:
- Adams as Giselle — the reason to watch, and the reason the premise survives.
- The Andalasia-to-Times Square transition — the film’s best idea, executed cleanly.
- Menken and Schwartz’s songs — strong, though the live-action half gets less out of them.
- Sarandon’s Narissa — a classic villainess, but thin next to the heroine.
- Pip’s silence in the real world — a good gag that wears out.
The Narissa material is where the film sags. She sends Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) after Edward with three poisoned apples, and whoever eats them falls into a deep sleep and dies at midnight. It is a plot engine, not a character. Sarandon’s mannerisms, characteristics and powers draw on classic Disney villainesses such as the Evil Queen and Maleficent, but the script gives her little to do besides scheme.
Idina Menzel’s Nancy Tremaine is a fashion designer and Robert’s girlfriend. She is named after Lady Tremaine from Cinderella, and she is underused. She arrives to take Morgan to school and leaves; the film does not return to her for long stretches.
None of this sinks the film. The live-action half feels weaker, and the back half feels like it leans on plot mechanics where the opening leaned on charm. But the central question the film poses — can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world — gets a real answer, not a shrug. Robert changes; Giselle keeps her convictions, and the film’s arc is his coming around to them.
The 107-minute runtime is right. The film does not overstay.
What matters most is that Enchanted treats its own source material with affection rather than contempt. A lesser film would have spent two hours sneering at fairy tales. This one lets the cynic come around to the heroine instead of the other way around. That is the harder trick, and Adams sells it.
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