Saturday, January 19, 2008

Charmed by Enchanted


My mom and I went to see Kevin Lima's Enchanted this afternoon. It was the perfect thing for me. A sweet, tongue-in-cheek romance, Enchanted plays around with both fairy tale and Disney animated musical conventions. Rather like Shrek.










Starring Amy Adams as an animated princess about to marry the prince of her dreams, the film switches gears into the hardcore reality of New York City. Our heroine must make her way through this confusing new world. Luckily the force of her plucky belief in the best of life has a way of rubbing off on even the most jaded big city dweller.



One of these New Yorkers is a single father played by Patrick Dempsey. He ends up regretting his decision to bring the confused young woman out of the rain and into his apartment. The self-styled 'princess' sweeps him along and before he knows what's happening, he's falling in love with this odd result of his Good Samaritan moment.



Dempsey discovers his new roommate has been telling the truth when her royal intended shows up. James Marsden has a lot of fun with this puffy-shirt role!


Evil step-mom and queen Susan Sarandon grabs onto her villainous role with both hands. Pursuing her nephew's bride-to-be for purposes of elimination rather than family bonding, she puts both of the princess's beaux through their paces as the romantic triangle tries to sort itself out.


Amy Adams is really amazing. Making an animated personality work in live action is quite a feat. I'm also a big fan of James Marsden and got a big kick out of his joyous aren't-I-too-fabulous? prince. It was left to Patrick Dempsey to anchor the film in reality and he provides the perfect bridge between the 2D and 3D worlds.

2 comments:

Akelamalu said...

I like the sound of that!

Karina said...

I do want to see this, for the pure sillyness of it. This was a great review, thanks!