Disenchanted
by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
15 years ago, Walt Disney Studios pulled off an amazing magic trick: they released a film that shouldn’t have worked in the slightest, but it ended up becoming a resounding commercial and critical success. This was a movie that at once held reverence for all of the classic Disney films, while also being able to look back at all of the tropes the studio had created over decades, and make a wholesome parody. Enchanted was a hit. It is beloved by many, including myself. Here we are now with the long-awaited sequel, Disenchanted. While it still may hold some elements of that Disney Magic, including some beautiful set designs, lovely costumes, and a couple of catchy songs (and I stress, just a couple), overall, this film completely misunderstands the assignment. It entirely forgets what made the original film special in the first place, while also creating a ton of unnecessary problems and never resolving its own plot. This should be sent back down the magic well from whence it came.
The events of Disenchanted take place 10 years after those of the original film. Giselle (Amy Adams) and Robert (Patrick Dempsey) are happily married, Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) is growing up and in high school, and they even have a newborn baby, Sofia, who has no purpose in the film whatsoever. To get away from their hectic and busy lives, the family picks up and leaves Manhattan to live in generic suburbia. But this life shift has festered an intense amount of conflict between Morgan and her parents, as she resents being forced to move away from her life and friends. Giselle wants nothing more than to mend the bonds with Morgan, but struggles to do so when it feels like the queen bee of the town, Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph), is out to make her life very difficult.
There are two major flaws with Disenchanted. The first is that it does not understand the magic that made the original feel so special. It was a parody. A self-reflective look in the mirror wherein Disney could poke fun at themselves. Having our princess sing with animals, only for those animals to be germ-ridden rats, pigeons, and cockroaches is hilarious. So is the threat of a poisoned apple being discarded and thrown at a random cyclist on the road. Having the princess save the man in distress at the end of the film is an empowering and unique moment. It is a complete disregard for the traditional source material, and it makes Enchanted feel fresh and original. Additionally, the fish-out-of-water scenarios and jokes of Giselle trying to adapt to our world are a riot. Not understanding how a marketing billboard works, making dresses out of people’s curtains, and being insistent that you should marry someone the day after meeting them is funny because of the juxtaposition these viewpoints have with reality. Unfortunately, all of these elements are missing from this sequel. That magic is simply gone. In fact, the song “That’s How You Know” from Enchanted has more commentary and parody than the entirety of this film, no exaggeration. That song has our co-lead openly questioning how everyone knows the lyrics to this made up song, wondering how everyone can perform synchronized dance routines together, and pointing out that he doesn’t even like to dance and that he cannot sing. There’s nothing like that in this film.
Instead of this being a parody of fairytale stories, this is another fairytale story. There’s no attempt at parody, it just follows the standard ruleset of any other fairy tale film. As well, all of the fish-out-of-water moments are gone. Giselle has adapted to this world and the only thing she doesn’t seem to understand is sarcasm, which doesn’t lead to any satisfying material. There’s just nothing special here; it’s now another generic fantasy tale, and the film is sorely lacking in humor because of these changes.
The second major issue, an arguably bigger issue than even the first, is that this movie never resolves its central conflict! Instead, it makes up an entirely new problem to distract you from the original conflict and make you forget about it. The central conflict in this film is that Morgan feels like she has lost any amount of agency that she might have had in her life, and that her parents are not listening to her. She’s lost her school, her friends, her home, and the city she lived in, and her parents are all too excited about it because they have a new suburban house. They’re unable to truly empathize with Morgan. This leads to a massive fight, particularly between Giselle and Morgan, in which Giselle is called ‘stepmother’ instead of ‘mother.’ The stepmother jab is a symptom of the larger problem, the parents not caring about Morgan’s feelings, not the actual conflict. But the film then completely diverges from here into a fairytale hellscape, and makes the conflict about Morgan seeing Giselle as though she were an evil stepmother, completely forgetting about the core issue. That’s… that’s the rest of the movie. The screenwriter was so eager to try and set up a twist on the evil stepmother paradigm that it completely forgot what got them to this point in the first place. From there, sure, you get a decently entertaining romp through fairytale tropes, and even a fun voice role from the great Alan Tudyk as a magical scroll, but at no point through the rest of the film does it resolve any of its foundational issues. The movie never returns to the crux of the conflict, it never resolves Morgan feeling like her parents don’t listen to her, and never addresses that they completely displaced her from her life. If you wanted to do this evil stepmother twist, fine, but make the allegory succinct, and complete the narrative arc. Tell the complete story and give the audience the resolution to the original conflict, not just a resolution to a conflict that you completely made up.
Side note, why did we recast Morgan? Everyone else came back. Plus, Rachel Covey, who portrayed Morgan in Enchanted, was even in this movie as one of the townspeople. So she was available. Could Covey not sing? Doubtful, she still performs in plays and musicals. Was it age? Covey is only four years older. Seems kind of shallow to say she’s too old with such a small difference. She could’ve still played an angsty high schooler; people in their 20s do that all the time. It just seems like an unnecessary slight to Covey, and it would’ve been nice to have the original cast back together. But I digress.
Looking beyond the fact that this movie changes its central conflict and goes forward with another completely different storyline entirely, even the new storyline doesn’t make much sense. It’s full of plot holes and ex machina coincidences that rob the film of all its stakes and tension. When Adams does and does not have control over her actions versus the curse that’s taking over her body is a joke, flat out. The details of who does or does not have powers, and who is or is not transformed by this spell is completely inconsistent. The movie is just going to movie. The biggest moment that made me throw my hands up in the air is when the clock was stopped from chiming to indefinitely pause the spell. What?! That’s as dumb as Mary Poppins rewinding time in Mary Poppins Returns. So, we’re just saying the actual progress of time is irrelevant? It’s actually the chimes of one clock that matter? If you could stop the chimes from the good guys’ perspective, why not speed up the cogs and get to midnight sooner from the bad guys’ perspective? Screw it. Ratchet spin those cogs as fast as you can; I’m sure you could make it midnight before brunch. Stupid plot shenanigans.
I will say that there are two songs that are quite fun. Two tracks that I could imagine might have the legs to potentially be memorable outside of this film. One would be the classic ballad, a song about love and memories, called “Love Power” that’s sung by Idina Menzel. It’s a sweet song with a lot of heart. It also has massive vocal swells that allows Menzel to belt it out in ways that only she can. Additionally, there’s one type of song trope we never got with the original Enchanted, and that’s the villain song. Very often the villain song can be one of the best, or most memorable, songs of a Disney film. This time we finally got that song with “Badder,” a fun duet in which Adams and Rudolph verbally duel with one another in regards to who can be more wickedly evil. It’s easily the best song of the film, even better than “Love Power,” which seems like the song Disney will likely push for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Everything outside of these two? Please, no. They’re not good, they’re not memorable, and they’re not worth listening to outside of watching this film. What’s really a shame, though, is that while these two songs are good, they’re still nowhere near as great as the tracks from Enchanted. This film never even comes close to the likes of “True Love’s Kiss” or “Happy Working Song,” let alone absolute classics like “So Close” and the ever catchy “That’s How You Know.” The songs from Disenchanted are not even in the same ballpark.
At least there are a couple of fun performances. Adams doesn’t feel like she’s quite as invested this time around, but she’s still sweet. Rudolph is deliciously contemptible as the PTA neighborhood mom you hate. I just wish the script gave her more to do. It’s a shame that other characters are relegated. Dempsey might as well not be in this movie, which is odd when he was the co-lead last time. Menzel is only here to sing, nothing more (though she does sing beautifully). We’ve already gone over how unfairly this movie treats the Morgan character, but Baldacchino does an okay job with the character; plus, she can sing. The real treasure for me, though, is James Marsden. Like Dempsey, he doesn’t even really need to be in this movie, but man is he great. Easily stealing every scene he’s in, he’s the only one that brought back the energy of the first film. He’s having a ton of fun, and he clearly understood the assignment. But fun small performances like this, and a couple (just a couple!) catchy songs are not nearly enough to salvage this flick.
The original Enchanted has become a staple in my household over the years, so I was genuinely excited to watch Disenchanted. Unfortunately, this is just a lackluster endeavor. As the film wasn’t even released to theaters I can’t even call this a blatant cash grab since it will bring in no box office revenue. Instead, it’s just a lifeless tug at nostalgic heartstrings. If you’re a massive fan of Enchanted or Disney in general, I guess you could go ahead and give this a try. There are certainly worse things you could watch. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Disenchanted left the Disney magic at the bottom of the wishing well this time.
Score: 4/10
Disenchanted is currently streaming on Disney+
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