Enchanted

Enchanted
Amy Adams, James Marsden, Patrick Dempsey
Director: Kevin Lima
Walt Disney Studios
2007

It takes about five minutes for Walt Disney’s Enchtanted to enchant. When the creative forces at Disney put the effort out they can create original family friendly entertainment that is without peer. Enchanted starts as a wonderful pastiche of fairy tale references from Arial to Snow White. The wonderful feature of Enchanted is that the self referential humor is gentle and crafted in such a way as to move the story forward.

In simple terms, not a spoiler, Giselle and Prince Edward are magically transformed from the cartoon fairy tale world into our real world. What does not transform are Giselle and Edward’s ideas of happiness, heroism and duty. When those ideas meet the real world they do not necessarily serve them well. If Enchanted were only a satire about fairy tale versus real world it would have failed miserably. Enchanted succeeds because at the heart of it is a love story that is as predictable as sunrise but with the twist and turns that only a fractured fairy tale could deliver.

Amy Adams is a wonderfully disarming Giselle and plays well with the picture of stoicism Patrick Dempsey as Robert Phillip and his daughter Morgan played by the charming Rachel Covey. While the storyline is as transparent as any fairy tale the journey is well worth it. This is a wonderful treat of a movie whether you have children to bring with you or not.

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