Enchanted, The Movie

Running Head : Enchanted Enchanted

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In recent years , the zeitgeist of family entertainment has tended to veer away from such straight-faced fairy tales : commercial darling Pixar Studios has specialized in computer animated other-worlds such as those of Cars and Finding Nemo whilst other features have grown increasingly modern in sensibility : earnestly referential like Shrek and The Princess Diaries , or cheekily humored as in The Pacifier and The Shaggy Dog

After comparatively disappointing box office returns and lukewarm critical reception on Home on the Range , Treasure

Planet and The Emperor 's New Groove , Walt Disney Productions has been faced with a rapidly diminishing ability to rely on theatrical animated features for its bread and butter in family entertainment . Perhaps part of the reason behind this is that they have effectively tapped the well dry of fairy tale princesses in features such as The Little Mermaid , Beauty and the Beast , and Aladdin which , in spite of being moderately indistinguishable , have been the overwhelming source of past box office successes

It comes as no surprise then that Disney 's greatest critical and commercial rebound arrived last year in Enchanted , an elegantly blended cocktail of urbane romantic comedies and candy coated fairy tale optimism , the latter of which is seldom seen in these modern times . The film accomplishes this hybrid act by making use of intertextual connections to other fairy tale devices established in and out of the Disney oeuvre while applying a broad range of tones - spanning from facetious to sincere - in to effectively update fairy tale themes such as true love for the 21st century

The protagonist of Enchanted is Giselle , a princess of cryptically unstated royalty from the animated land of Andalasia , which effectively stands in for any vaguely European fairy tale kingdom ever featured in previous Disney films where woodland creatures help with the housework would-be suitors are blessed with square jaws and a magnificent baritone and you can identify the evil queens from the good queens based on the extent to which they resemble a transvestite Tim Curry

The film begins with a brief storybook-style prelude narrated by Julie Andrews , whom clever ears will recognize as the lovingly acerbic Mary Poppins from the Disney film of the same name . This sequence is evocative of the prelude of Sleeping Beauty , in which a similar storybook device leads in to the birth of Princess Aurora , who Giselle most resembles . Giselle is presented as a bit of a pre-modern hippie who eschews a castle home in favor of a tree-shaped house where her squirrel pal Pip helps her build a make shift effigy of her true love , much like the forest animals in Sleeping Beauty cooperated to give Aurora a dancing partner in the woods . In mere minutes , the innocently narcissistic Prince Edward rescues Giselle from a troll , and the resulting romantic high leads the two to get engaged . However , his stepmother , the villainous Queen Narissa , who resembles the sorcerous Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty , has no desire...