Enchanted

Enchanted A classic Disney fairytale collides with modern-day New York City in a story about a fairytale princess who is sent to our world by an evil queen. Soon after her arrival, Princess Giselle begins to change her views on life and love after meeting a handsome lawyer.

Starring: Patrick Dempsey, Amy Adams, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey and Susan Sarandon etc.

Rating: PG for some scary images and mild innuendo.

This movie was delightful. It starts off in Andalasia, where Giselle in animated form is waiting for her prince and true love's first kiss. Giselle meets her prince and they about to wed when Giselle is tricked by Prince Edward's stepmother and ends up in New York where she's turned from animated into human form. She meets up with a lawyer and his daughter who kindly try to help her.

What I found to be charming about this movie is that Giselle sticks to all of her naive ideas (true love, happily ever after, princes etc) despite all the bitter cynicism of Robert (lawyer). The songs are delightful and catchy and I found myself wanting to be a little more like Giselle in her openness and persistently upbeat outlook on life. While Giselle remains charming, Robert does cause Giselle to realize that there may be a bit more to life than just finding one's prince and living happily ever after. Just what does "happily ever after" entail after all.

This story was also interesting because it basically ran across the board of all the fairy tales out there and took different aspects from each one.

Amy Adams does an excellent job of portraying the sweet and naive Giselle. She also has a lovely singing voice and really conveys a genuine sincerity to her part. Susan Sarandon was magnificent for her role as Narissa. Not sure why she didn't get an Oscar nod.

Parental concerns:

Sex/Nudity: Scene where Giselle is getting out of the shower and birds hold up towel for her. Nothing is visible except maybe naked shoulders and legs. She also falls on top of Robert in this scene while only in her towel. Giselle does show a lot of cleavage throughout the film. Mild innuendo.

Violence: Prince's helper Nathaniel repeated threatens to kill the squirrel. Prince brandishes sword around at people in trying to find Giselle. Obvious that Nathaniel is trying to get rid of Giselle by making her eat poisoned apple.

Without spoiling the ending... Prince Edward's stepmother, Narissa, tries to kill Giselle and then causes a fight scene, windows breaking, falling off buildings etc.

Narissa can be quite scary and changes her appearance through magic and incantation.

I usually stick pretty close the rating guidelines for my children. However, if your child has read Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, they know that the evil witch was trying to kill the princess. Unless, of course, you edit it out. We tried editing it all out but other people are not always so quick on the uptake there. What we did do was skip most of the ending as we considered it too frightening. You can pretty much go from the ball scene where Narissa shows up and tries to ruin everything. Watch it ahead of time and you will know exactly where it would make sense to end if off.

Try it out. If not for your children then for yourself. It was a delightful movie and well deserving of all the nominations for and actual Oscar awards received. One other fun thing is that in the special features section, you can play your favourite music scenes. My girls and I loved to put it on and dance around to it.

Zeemaid