Simply Enchanted

On Thursday, I went to see Disney's Enchanted, a very charming twist on the traditional princess fairy tale. The film interweaves the animated world of Andalasia with the gritty world of New York City. Somehow, it manages to offer an homage to all the classic Disney fairy tales and at the same time parody those films. The parody, of course, is affectionate in nature, but it is still effective. Amy Adams played the ingenuous Giselle to perfection. When she first arrives in New York, she exhibits all the mannerisms of her animated self until, subtly and slowly, she becomes more and more "real" as a result of her interactions with Robert (Patrick Demspey) and his adorable daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). Throughout it all, however, Giselle never loses her winning innocence and optimism. The male leads were also very well cast. I mean, which girl wouldn't want McDreamy and Cyclops vying for her affections? Seriously, though, Patrick Dempsey provided a nice foil to all the fairy tale shenanigans, but I thought James Marsden was hilarious as the dashing but slightly ridiculous Prince Edward. He's a great singer, too, but I already knew this from his performance in Hairspray . In addition, Susan Sarandon made a menacing Queen Narissa, garbed in the traditional dark purple of Disney villains, though surprisingly complemented with a pair of daunting go-go boots! Robert's almost-fiancée Nancy and the henchman Nathaniel were strong supporting characters. I thought both of them looked familiar, and it turns out that Nancy is played by Tony-award-winning Idina Menzel, who starred in Wicked (too bad they didn't write her a song to sing!), and Nathaniel is played by Timothy Spall, who appeared in the Harry Potter movies as Peter Pettigrew, a.k.a. Wormtail. However, I think my favorite part of the film was Pip the chipmunk. In the animated world, he is a wise-cracking creature with a New York accent. When he becomes a real chipmunk in New York, he loses the ability to talk and must resort to pantomimes to communicate with the clueless Edward. The charades scene between the two is sidesplittingly funny. All in all, this was a delightful modern-day fairy tale. Bravo Disney!