Oscar nominations came out and I try to see everything nominated. One reason is that I sometimes find really good films that I otherwise would have missed. Enchanted got three nominations for best song and I knew people who had seen it and said it was better than they expected, but I wasn't all that interested. I had lunch with a friend yesterday and he was going to see it afterward with his 6 year old son and wife, so I tagged along. I have to say, I had a lot of fun with some of this film. Now I see it has a 93% favorable on Rotten Tomatoes and that makes sense to me.
The first 10 minutes are animated (and narrated by Julie Andrews). It is a storybook tale of Princess Giselle pining for her Prince Edward with lots of woodland creatures included. Giselle's best friend is a chipmunk named Pip. Edward has an assistant named Nathaniel who's really working for the evil Queen Narissa. To prevent the wedding Narissa throws Giselle down a bottomless hole that lets out at a New York City manhole cover. Animated Giselle becomes Amy Adams and her performance is amazing. She embodies an animated Disney princess, with twirling and singing and smiling and ernest goodness. This film would not work at all without this performance. She should have gotten Ellen Page's nomination.
Eventually Prince Edward and Nathaniel appear, looking for Giselle. James Marsden is Edward and his a live version of Gaston. He played Cyclops in the X-Men films and I was never impressed, but he is remarkably expressive here. Pip comes along with them and is CG animation and unable to speak in the real world. Pantomime and getting into trouble is his specialty and he's very fun. Giselle is hard to find because she's taken in by Patrick Demsey is Robertt, a divorce lawyer with a young girl and a girlfriend he's about to propose to. He doesn't believe in true love and Giselle is the personification of it, literally not understand what anger is. So you can all see where this is going and it culminates with Narissa coming to NY as Susan Sarandon who's also fun.
So here's why this film works. Giselle spends the night on Robert's couch and wakes up early (at dawn?) and finds the apartment a mess. Dirty dishes, clothes, etc. What would a Disney princess do in such a situation? She opens the window and sings to call the woodland creatures to help her clean. But this is NY so it's pigeons, rats, roaches and bees that come and help. And they do help, as she sings "Happy Working Song". And what would a real life human do waking up and finding rats, insects and pigeons in his apartment? Exactly what you'd expect. This the most entertaining scene I saw all year. The song is up for an Oscar and it's making me rethink that award. I don't think it should be for just the song (which I'd never care to hear on the radio) but for the scene in which it appears, which I could watch over and over again. There is a similar scene in Washington Square Park that's almost as good and is also up for Best Song.
This is was a surprisingly fun film. I knew almost nothing about it going in and that helped I'm sure. I had a similar experience with Dreamgirls last year. If you go to the movies for happy/fun, Enchanted will deliver. If more likely your dragged to it by a significant other, you won't hate it as much as you think.
No comments:
Post a Comment