Nitpicking movies! Enchanted

[sincere]

One-line version: Very cute movie, but tragically stupid. Maybe a B?

First of all, let me explain what was cute. The animation was gorgeous. I thoroughly enjoyed the opening sequence, partly because it was tongue-in-cheek, and would've happily paid to watch that movie. I really thought that the fantasy characters were adorable, even Peter Pettigrew Nathaniel, with his incidental self-help course throughout the movie. I really, really liked the idea. I totally think kids and adults alike would both enjoy this movie: although there's lots of fun ingenuous moments, there's also a lot of tributes to other, older Disney classics in here that are fun to pick out and giggle over. The musical numbers are openly campy in places and really fun.

But by stupid I mean contradicts itself thematically, has no support for its attempted arguments, and really sort of went in random directions by the end.

It bothers me a little that Giselle is called out for her "love at first sight" with Prince Edward, for being willing to marry him after only a day, but apparently two days is long enough to convince Robert that he loves Giselle more than his girlfriend of five years, who he was going to ask to marry him right before he met Giselle. For some reason, despite Giselle acting and subsequently being treated like an imbecile, and Robert blatantly hating all of coherent moments, it just takes the right kind of love at first sight. The first time was fake.

And we're not even given a good explanation why. Edward spends the whole movie desperately trying to find her. He wants nothing but her. When they're reunited, the day after they were supposed to get married, Giselle has fallen out of love with him. She convinces him to go on a date, on which we are presumably supposed to see that they are incompatible, but all of that was cut, if it ever existed: instead of what she suggests, where they talk about their interests and likes and dislikes, and presumably see that they do not like the same things, etc, we just see the end of their, again, presumably bad date.

But he's really the sweetest guy. He just wants to sing duets with her. Robert wants her to stop singing, period. Unless oh wait, she changed his whole personality in two days, I forgot. But Edward asks Robert to give her love's true kiss, and when it worked, he's just -- happy she's alive, even if it means she can't be his.

Fortunately, he gets another girlfriend in about ten seconds, lol.

I respect it when a movie is mature enough not to make the "unwanted" loved ones evil, e.g. the totally bitchy girlfriend you're supposed to hate that the hero dumps to be with the heroine. (Of course, I would respect it more if the movie is mature enough to let the heroine touch and change the hero's life and then he goes back to his girlfriend and she goes back to her boyfriend and we're all better people for it but no insipid 'predictable' romance ensues.) Whatever. I appreciate that Edward and Robert's girlfriend (Nancy?) aren't portrayed as being bad people who don't deserve happily ever afters, except if Nancy marries Robert, because then that makes her an evil stepmother, but Giselle, needless to say, does not get the same treatment, even though Nancy is really nice to Robert's daughter, and friendly, not in a condescending way either.

I do not, however, respect leftovershipping. You know: Characters A&B are together, and since the only other main characters are C&D, let's pair them, too! That's what this movie smacked of. "I'm not a bad person, so bad things can't happen to me, so I'll fall in love with the other guy who got dumped and everyone has a happy ending!"

As a victim of leftovershipping, Nancy is very happy to drop her entire life and accompany Edward back to fairyland to get married. But, wait. Isn't she a wealthy, competent, powerful professional woman, who seemed to be perfectly happy with her life? Why would she ditch all that just to marry a guy who is more romantic than her last boyfriend? We never had any indication from her that she wanted fairytales and princesses and having doors opened for her etc. She just wanted her boyfriend to be a little more impulsive, a little more outspoken.

...Why didn't Robert move to fairyland? With the girl he hypothetically likes who came from there and liked it there, and his six-year-old daughter, who desperately loves fairy tales and would've been so excited to go there? Why did they stay in New York? He's the only one who would've voted for that, I think. What kind of dick is he, that he considers his dinky life as a divorce lawyer more important than the wishes of everyone else he hypothetically cares about?

Then there's my problem with the villain. Narissa's motivation was okay at first, but by the end she was sort of just being stupid. If all you wanted was your stepson's girlfriend out of your hair -- why did you go through all the trouble of using her crush on Robert to manipulate her into eating a poisoned apple which ended in your stepson figuring out you were evil -- when you could've just convinced her to act on her crush on Robert instead of marrying the guy she didn't really care for anyway? No one would've ever found you out. :\ Plus, we got really over the top at around this point with the lifting shit from other movies. We went from cute send-offs to Snow White and Sleeping Beauty into outright stealing every major climactic scene.

And finally, on a related note:

Narissa. Get over yourself, bitch.

You are not Maleficent.

You will never be as cool as fucking Maleficent.

It's not as easy as just turning into a dragon for the climax. That's not what makes you fucking Maleficent.

You got to own. And you? Do not.

The end.

Comments

[syvia.livejournal.com]

All valid points, but this one-

Narissa. Get over yourself, bitch.

You are not Maleficent.

You will never be as cool as fucking Maleficent.

OWNS.

Thank you. XD THANK YOU!

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

Maleficent is, to this day, one of the best Disney villains ever concocted. She is deeply and truly badass. X3 And as fun as Narissa was? Definitely Maleficent kicks her ass.

[unite.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think you kind of missed the point. Maybe I'm just defensive because that movie never stops making me smile.

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movie. It was ridiculously sweet and unrepentantly charming, even when I felt it disappointed me. I loved it without reserve up until about the halfway point.

But I feel like -- I don't know. It's less that I missed the point than that I encountered two different opposing points, and then they took turns seeming valid.

Is this a movie about how there is such a thing as happily ever afters and fairy tales really do come true? Then why did our movie end, thematically speaking, by making Giselle conform to "reality"? She spent the whole movie making beautiful gowns, but when it came down to it, she went and (inappropriately! when everyone else was dressed in elegant period gowns!) bought herself a sleek and bland modern dress and ironed her hair flat and generally tried to look like a businesswoman instead of something from a fairy tale? Why did she open up a dress shop to sell gowns that she would have happily given away at the start of the movie, like she gave away money?

Is this a movie, as maladaptive suggested, about growing up and giving up your fairy tale dreams? But then why did she spend all this time convincing him that fairy tale love does exist, that people are good at heart? Why did we manage to fix the relationship of Robert's divorce client just with purity of goodwill? Why did the movie end in pure fantasy, true love's kiss and noble intelligent chipmunks saving the day when nothing else could?

Or did they try to have it both ways? Sometimes you have to learn to live in reality, a la Giselle, and sometimes fairy tales are the way to go, a la Nancy? Is this a movie that says that you can have fantasy in reality, but at no point actually attempted to sell that idea? Everyone drew very clear lines between fantasy and reality at the end -- Nancy gave up her modern life entirely, and Giselle made herself as modern as she could conceivably be without actually becoming a different character, to the point where her best friend the chipmunk went home without her.

I'm sorry, I really, truly, honestly enjoyed the movie. But it fails to tell me that it knows what it wants to say. It just sort of tried to go everywhere at once in the ending, so in the end it feels like a movie that wants me to switch my brain off and just watch it mindlessly, which really negates the point, for me, of being both kid- and adult-friendly. XD

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Haha, those were my problems, too. Disney set out to spoof itself-- which I can totally appreciate-- but then it fell into the same old trap. I can see where they meant to go with Edward being a self-centered git, but Marsden is so damn charming and McBlandy is so... well, bland that it doesn't feel fulfilling. And I was irritated that for the ball, Giselle got that dress and her hair blown out when she'd been making these totally adorable and wonderful dresses. It's kind of like they were saying "she's part of our world now, grown up and boring." I know they wanted Giselle to change Robert around and bring magic into his life, but he just didn't unhinge enough. He was supposed to have an easily cracked exterior, but Dempsey just couldn't manage to keep up with the over-the-top everything of the rest of the cast.

It seemed very much like a movie about growing up and leaving your dreams behind if I think about it too much.

I did kind of like Narissa at the end, just for the over-the-topness.

[kay-willow.livejournal.com]

I didn't dislike Narissa, it's just that she'll never be Maleficent. XD Maleficent is badass. You will always be a wannabe by imitating her.

That was my problem, too. I really wanted to see the movie I thought I saw in the first half of the movie -- a movie about a fairy tale heroine who teaches a bland modern guy how to make the girl he loves happy, and then returns to her happily-ever-after. I would've appreciated that, because they both seem to "go" with their respective partners a lot better. I was never sold on why Giselle would have fallen for this guy in this span of time, or why he fell for her when he seemed to want to crush everything that made her unique. It was just Night 1: He thinks she's crazy. Day 1: He wants to kill her. Day 2: Suddenly he smiles affectionately as she cuts holes in his carpets. But there was never any development of that affection. He was just like, "GIVE UP YOUR DREAMS. --Aww, she's so whimsical." It felt plastic. She didn't make him a more charming character; she just made his deficit of charm more obvious. XD

Depressing, but totally a valid theory.

[haruomi.livejournal.com]

I've really glad that you posted this, because I liked the first half of the movie, but couldn't understand why I didn't like the second as much. However, after reading this entry I completely agree with all the points that you've mad, because they're all so true.

It also would have been nice if there were more musical numbers, like "That's How You Know".