Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at Enchanted

Welcome my friends to our first ever Patreon sponsored edition of Deep Dive Disney. A reminder to all of you that you can request my thoughts on any piece of media you desire (Disney or Otherwise) by following the link at the top of the page and becoming a Patron yourself. The request this time around just so happens to be the 2007 live action film, Enchanted, a film that pays homage to many Disney movies of old, particularly fairy tale-based offerings but also pokes fun at and dissects many of the tropes found therein. Sometimes it does this in ways that are subtle and clever, sometimes not so much. Anywho, our story begins in a magical animated land known as Andalasia where a beautiful young girl named Giselle has fallen in love with a prince named Edward and, in typical fairy tale fashion, they pretty much decide to marry on the spot. This raises the ire of evil sorceress, Queen of Andalasia, and Edward’s stepmother, Narissa. See, if Edward ever gets married, Narissa will be forced to abdicate the throne. Not willing to give up her power without a fight, Narissa sends Giselle through a magic portal that leads to a world where there are no happily ever afters. Said world turns out to be the very much live-action New York City. Naturally, someone as naïve and innocent as your typical Disney princess has about as much chance of surviving New York City as rational and polite discourse has of surviving Twitter so Giselle ends up having a pretty rough go of things until she runs into Robert, a single father and divorce lawyer, and Morgan, Roberts six-year-old daughter. While Robert understandably has some misgivings about letting this strange and quite possibly insane woman into his home, he’s not so heartless that he’ll let this poor girl sleep on the cold New York streets so agrees to let her crash at his apartment, albeit temporarily. While both the valiant Prince Edward and Narissa’s bumbling henchman Nathaniel arrive in New York City in search of Giselle, she and Robert get to know each other. While Robert shows Giselle that romance can be more than what she believes it is, Giselle’s relentless optimism and kindness seems to rub off on the normally cynical Robert. It’s a surprisingly fun film and an enjoyable experience for any true blue Disney nerd like myself. Let’s take a look at, Enchanted.

Main Character:

I’m going to say that Giselle and Robert both have an equal claim to the title of main character in this film. Let’s start with Giselle, played by the incredibly talented and versatile Amy Adams. Effectively, Giselle is pretty much all the typical tropes of a Disney Princess in one vessel, or good and for bad. She’s kind, optimistic and pure of heart but also very naïve and willing to marry a dude just because they made eye contact at one point. She is incredibly likable and you can understand how her optimism and innocence can be a positive influence on those around her. There’s this minor subplot where Robert is representing a woman during her divorce, but Giselle gets a chance to talk to the divorcing couple and her words about true love convince them to get back together. I actually thought more than once during the movie that Giselle would make a good marriage counselor, but hey, fashion designer works too, either way she’s doing something she loves and happens to be good at.

Now let’s talk about Robert. The movie initially frames Robert as this cynical jerk and I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Sure, he can be a bit of a buzzkill, but he’s got his reasons for acting the way he does. He doesn’t know Giselle and having some reservations about letting this possibly deranged woman into his home and near his daughter is completely rational thinking. As for his views on the fairy tale style romance, you can’t blame him for that either. His wife left him long ago and that has colored his view of love and romance. Real life doesn’t always work like a fairy tale and as far as Robert is concerned, love isn’t always built to last. This is why he discourages his daughter’s belief in fairy tales, because he wants her to grow up with realistic expectations. This is why, instead of giving her a book of fairy tales, he gives his daughter a book of famous women in history. By the way, I don’t care that it’s not what she wanted, that is an awesome gift and Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt are way cooler than Snow White and Cinderella, I’m just saying. Overall, I actually really enjoy Robert and Giselle as a couple. One doesn’t believe in true love, one believes in it a little too hard and together, they find a balance and fall in love on a level that works for both of them. Plus, Patrick Dempsey and Amy Adams have great on-screen chemistry, so there’s that.

Villain:

Much in the same way that Giselle is a collection of traits from Disney Princesses of old, Narissa is pretty much a straight up amalgamation of Maleficent and The Evil Queen with maybe bits of Ursula and Yzma thrown in for good measure. Truth be told, I have a hard time figuring out how I feel about Narissa. For the majority of the movie, she doesn’t really do much other than sit on the sidelines berating her incompetent minion, Nathaniel (more on him in our next section). I was totally prepared to write Narissa off as a lame villain but once she actually gets up off her ass and decides to influence the plot directly, she’s shown to be pretty badass and it’s clear that Susan Sarandon is having a blast playing an over-the-top evil witch and gets in more than a few decent one liners. Is Narissa as great as those who inspired her creation, I wouldn’t go that far. Frankly the fact that she still goes after Giselle even though it’s clear that she’s fallen for Robert doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since the only reason Giselle was ever a threat to her was because she planned to marry Edward. Furthermore, even though her presence makes the climax a ton of fun, she does make a huge mistake that Maleficent never did. See, Maleficent only spoke when she needed to, making every word she says carry more weight. Narissa never seems to shut up, even in her dragon form. While she still gets in some funny lines, see spends most of the final showdown blatantly calling attention to the fact that this movie is subverting classic tropes, so much so that it comes across as a complete fourth wall break. It gets super annoying, but it does lead me to an interesting theory. What if Narissa had somehow become aware of the fact that her world is a mere work of fiction and has taken steps to undo the fate she knew was coming. I guess we’ll never know, unless Narissa comes back for the upcoming sequel. Also, fun fact, no disrespect to Susan Sarandon, but did you know that Angelica Huston was considered for this role? Morticia Addams as a Disney Villainess? Now that would have been cool!

Side Characters:

I don’t want to spend too much time on Morgan, she’s pretty much your typical little girl who believes in magic. There’s not much else too her but the friendship she forms with Giselle is absolutely adorable.

Prince Edward, played by James Marsters (who’s likely shocked to be playing someone who’s a bigger douche than Scott Summers) is, naturally, an over-the-top parody of your typical Disney Prince. He’s valiant and handsome, but also kind of pompous and self-absorbed, though never to the point where he comes across as a jerk. Imagine if Gaston actually was the charming and noble hero that he’d deluded himself into thinking he was and you pretty much have Edward. He is obsessed with marrying Giselle and finds the idea of dating before marriage (something Giselle learned about from Robert) to be utterly ridiculous. However, Edward does get this one really awesome moment. Towards the end when Narissa pulls the old poison apple trick on Giselle (can’t beat the classics), Edward tries the whole true loves kiss thing. However, when it doesn’t work, he immediately realizes that Giselle heart belongs to Robert and accepts it with dignity and grace. Like Giselle, Edward is a believer in true love and won’t interfere with it, even when that love is not his own.

Nathaniel is Narissa’s put-upon henchman, sort of a Mr. Smee/Le Fou type. Normally I would have discussed Nathaniel in the villain section, but I don’t actually think Nathaniel is evil. He just serves Narissa because he’s afraid of her and likely in love with her. Nathaniel is played by Timothy Spall, who most of you will probably know as Worm-Tail from the Harry Potter films. I really like Spall as an actor, but man, do his scenes get annoying in this film. Most of his schtick for the movie involves him dressing up in increasingly ridiculous and probably offensive disguises and trying to poison Giselle and none of it is as funny as the writers probably intended. Still, Nathaniel gets to have his own awesome moment at the end where he finally grows a pair of balls and stands up to Narissa, exposing her treachery to Edward in the process. Good for him! Nathaniel may have had some embarrassing scenes, but that’s nothing compared to the worst character in the entire film, Pip. Pip is a chipmunk and one of Giselle’s animal friends who joins Edward on his quest to New York to save Giselle. Pip is completely useless and seems to only be in this movie to fill the animal sidekick quota. You could have cut Pip out of this movie entirely and in my opinion, it would have been much more enjoyable. He’s not as bad as the Cinderella mice, but he’s damn close.

Finally, there’s Nancy, Robert’s girlfriend. I don’t actually dislike this character, but I do have a lot of issues with how she’s used. See, Nancy is basically here to play the part of the wicked stepmother, right down to her being given the surname of Tremaine (subtlety thy name is Disney), and I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Lady Tremaine was a sadistic abuser who tormented an innocent girl with the intent of breaking her spirit. Nancy is shown to be a perfectly nice person who clearly tries to connect with Morgan (who treats her like shit by the way) and does seem to genuinely care about Robert. Literally the worst thing she does is act suspicious of Robert and Giselle and, given the fact that when she first met Giselle she was lying naked on top of Robert, that suspicion is more than justified. Yes, we the audience know that that occurrence was just an innocent misunderstanding, but Nancy certainly doesn’t. However, my biggest issue with this character is the fact that she’s played by Idina Menzel. Now wait a minute, you’re probably asking, I thought Idina Menzel was awesome? Idina Menzel IS awesome, and that’s the problem. They cast Idina Menzel in a musical, and they don’t have her sing! Now, I am well aware that Menzel considered it a compliment to be cast based solely on her acting ability and that’s all well and good as Menzel is indeed a talented actress as well as a talented singer. However, I personally just find her non-musical presence in this musical to be rather distracting for that reason. This is a musical and we are not taking advantage of the Broadway Goddess we have in our cast. Make no mistake, Amy Adams is an excellent singer in her own right, but Idina Menzel can sing circles around the best of them any day of the week. Imagine you’re eating a cheeseburger. The cheeseburger is juicy and delicious. You are happy with the cheeseburger. But just out of reach, there sits a mouth-watering cut of prime rib. You’re still happy with the cheeseburger, but now you can’t help but want the prime rib. See what I’m getting at? In any case, I do appreciate that Nancy ends up with Edward at the end and since both are slated to appear in the upcoming sequel, I hope to see more of how their relationship has developed.

Songs:

As a sendup to classic Disney Princess movies, naturally this one has most of the typical songs you’d expect to find in one of those films. We have the love duet, the working song, you all know how it goes. I would have liked a villain song from Narissa and get Susan Sarandon to show off them Rocky Horror credentials, but what are you gonna do. While many of these songs aren’t exactly Alan Menken’s best work, Menken is still the sort of guy who can produce quality even if he’s not necessarily on his a-game and a lot of these songs are pretty fun, especially the big number “That’s How You Know.” What’s funny is when Giselle sings, it influences the environment around her to create dramatic effect for the musical number. This is funny, but I think it would have been funnier if Giselle tried to sing and instead of joining in, everyone just looked at her like a crazy person.

Memorable Scenes:

Far and away my favorite scene is one where Sam, Robert’s secretary, has to babysit Giselle and is driven nuts by her strangeness and naivety. Why is this scene so significant? It’s because Sam is played by none other than Jodi Benson! Not only is seeing Jodi Benson awesome in general, but seeing Ariel herself, playing a sensible human being for a change, now on the receiving end of someone as irritating naïve as Ariel is very amusing to me. Part of me wonders if Sam the secretary actually WAS Ariel in a past life and this is some sort of karmic punishment. Also, if you listen closely to the elevator music in the background during this scene, it’s actually Part of Your World. That’s a pretty cool easter egg. Actually, this movie is loaded to the brim with cameos and easter eggs like that. Paige O’Hara, the voice Belle, plays an actress in a soap opera that Prince Edward watches, that scene also having a musical reference, in this case the title song from Beauty & The Beast. Judy Kuhn, the singing voice of Pocahontas, plays a woman in Roberts building and has a pretty funny exchange with Edward. The Italian restaurant that Robert takes Giselle to is called “Bella Notte.” And if I keep going, we’d be here all day. I just really appreciate all the little nods to Disney films of the past for hardcore fans like myself.

Story:

As I said at the top, this film simultaneously pays homage to and pokes fun at the typical tropes of the old Disney Princess movies and does so very well. I think the best way the film shows this is through Robert and Giselle’s romance. These are two people who have almost polar opposite views on love and romance, but the film is smart enough not to take a side on who’s right and who’s wrong. Instead, we find a compromise. Robert shows Giselle how to be more sensible and that there’s more to love than just being swept off one’s feet and getting married, and Giselle helps Robert rediscover the sense of optimism and romance that he’d long thought lost to him. Together, they actually make a really cute couple. Well done.

The Dark Disney Factor:

This movie is a mostly lighthearted affair, but there is one thing in it that I feel is a lot darker than intended. See, when Giselle sings, humans and animals usually join in the song. This is all well and good in a cartoon that operates on those rules but in the “real world” you have to wonder, is Giselle inadvertently usurping the will of people who are just minding their own business? That’s more than a little messed up when you think about it. Does she still have this power even after she decides to stay in the real world? Again, we’ll have to see when we get to the sequel next year.

Final Thoughts: This is a fun film. Is it a grand and memorable masterpiece like some of the films it's poking fun at? Hell no, but it's not really trying to be. It's paying homage to them while having a bit of lighthearted fun at their expense. I had a ton of fun with this one and I'm glad it was requested. Speaking of, a special shout out to my Patrons: Darla, Janey, Greg and of course, a very special shoutout to Rachel, who requested this film as well as another one coming up soon. Next time, we finally finish off the set schedule for Deep Dive Disney when we look at Pixar's newest offering, Luca.