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Reviewed by:
  • Enchanted
  • Shannan Palma (bio)
Enchanted. Directed by Kevin Lima. Performed by Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, and Susan Sarandon. DVD. Walt Disney Pictures. 2007.

Enchanted, Disney’s latest foray into the fairy-tale market, marks not only the studio’s first animation/live-action hybrid, but also its first attempt to create an original fairy tale tangentially related to its “princess” line marketed to girls ages two to six.

The film chronicles the animated adventures of Giselle, a naïve young woman who sings to her animal friends of how much she wants to find her [End Page 193] true love and share true love’s kiss, only to literally fall into the charming Prince Edward’s lap minutes later. The two empty-headed heroes immediately burst into duet and decide to marry. Edward’s evil stepmother, Queen Narissa, aghast at the possibility of losing her crown to the new bride, transforms herself into an old hag, à la Snow White, and tricks the exuberant Giselle into falling into a wishing well, through a vortex, and into a hellish exile in live-action New York. When Pip, the talking chipmunk who is Giselle’s best friend, tells Edward what has happened and he too leaps into the well in order to find and rescue her, Narissa assigns her henchman to follow and poison Giselle rather than let the couple reunite.

Giselle experiences various misadventures but is rescued from the streets by Robert, a handsome divorce attorney, and Morgan, his fairy-tale-obsessed young daughter. Robert scoffs at Giselle’s idealistic belief that Edward will come for her and that true love is the most powerful force on earth, but at the same time he finds himself touched by her optimism and charm. Giselle ignores Robert’s cynicism about love, but takes to heart his dictum that real love grows through getting to know the other person’s likes and dislikes rather than simply following a story line. By the time Edward shows up, Giselle and Robert have fallen for each other; however, they do what’s expected of them and return to their respective partners—Giselle to Edward and Robert to Nancy.

In keeping with Robert’s lessons on love, Giselle asks Edward to take her on a date before they return to Andalasia. Meanwhile, Robert attempts to make up for his recent distraction with his girlfriend by taking her out. Both couples thus end up at a fancy-dress ball just as Narissa shows up in person.

Giselle, susceptible to Narissa’s machinations because of her grief at leaving Robert, bites into a poison apple and falls into a coma. Robert, no longer a cynic, figures out that only true love’s kiss can awaken her. When Edward’s kiss doesn’t do the trick, Robert himself kisses Giselle, with Nancy’s unexpected blessing. Giselle awakens, and the two declare their love while Edward and Nancy look on with bittersweet relief.

In a final, somewhat nonsensical twist, Narissa transforms herself into a dragon, à la Sleeping Beauty, and kidnaps Robert in order to punish Giselle. Though one may read this rather odd scene as an attempt at gender inversion, ultimately Pip the chipmunk, not Giselle, is responsible for the evil queen’s fall to her death. Nancy takes Giselle’s place as Edward’s bride, and Giselle stays with Robert and Morgan in New York. They all presumably live happily ever after.

Though the film references a variety of traditional and nontraditional fairy tales, the references are generally allusions to previous Disney productions rather [End Page 194] than their folklore antecedents. For example, Giselle, lost in New York City, has a brief encounter with a very short, very angry man in a business suit who gets trapped by the skirt of her unwieldy wedding dress. When the man snaps at her, Giselle clasps her hands and cries out in happiness, “Grumpy!” referencing a specific character from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Visual references to previous Disney features and productions, and even, in the closing credits, to upcoming animated productions such as The Princess and the Frog, might provoke the cynic to wonder if...

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