Enchanted
Year: 2007
Rating: PG
Length: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours
For 70 years, Disney released movies that built up this fantastical notion of what a “princess” was. From Snow White (1937) to Cinderella (1950) to Sleeping Beauty (1959), and all other princess movies since then, Disney built up an amount of lore around these characters that would look ridiculous if transposed into reality. And while the princesses scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) understands the tongue-in-cheek nature of these fantasy stories, nothing ever quite beats Enchanted (2007) as the best self-aware commentary of the princess genre.
Starting off in the animated world of Andalusia, Enchanted introduces Giselle (Amy Adams) as a princess yearning for “true love’s kiss.” Luckily, she falls right into the lap of Prince Edward (James Marsden) who proclaims that they will be wed the following day. Of course, this does not sit well with Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who banishes Giselle to the real world. Here, Giselle’s “princess powers” still somewhat work as she summons all the nearby animals (read: vermin) of New York and is able to get all of Central Park singing a tune about true love. However, even these stunts aren’t enough to overcome the reality that there isn’t always a happy ending in the real world.
While Adams and Marsden playing up their fantasy roles in New York City is a brilliant contrast to how people actually behave, Robert’s (Patrick Dempsey) bewildered commentary is the highlight of the movie. Both sides of the fairy tale/real world equation grow closer to an understanding of each other’s culture and change their optimism/pessimism in kind. This is the crux of Enchanted: the real world might be harsh, but it’s better if you look on the positive side of things and work toward solutions instead of bemoaning the current state of things.
The best self-aware princess movie, I give Enchanted 5.0 stars out of 5.
This film appears in the following posts:
Cinema Connections #002. Self-Aware
Cinema Connections #003. Mixing Mediums
