Once upon its release in 2007, Disney’s Enchanted charmed audiences with its new take on the classic fairytale. This is where we first get introduced to an animated Giselle played by Amy Adams (Arrival and Justice League) and her fictional home, Andalasia. As with any fairy tale trope, we also meet her knight in shining armor, Prince Edward played by James Marsden (Sonic the Hedgehog) and the evil Queen Narissa played by Susan Sarandon (Thelma and Louise).
As expected, the evil queen will stop at nothing to prevent a princess from taking over her role and power. Instead of a curse that would cause Giselle to fall into an endless sleep or even die, Queen Narissa instead banishes Giselle to another dimension which just happens to be modern-day New York City. It’s here that the fairytale tropes start to take on a new spin. Giselle crosses paths with a divorce lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey, Grey’s Anatomy) and his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). Though the lawyer is already in a relationship with Idina Menzel’s (Frozen) character, Nancy, Robert and Giselle end up falling for each other through a series of sometimes musical misadventures through the city while they are trying to find a way to send Giselle back to her home of Andalasia.
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Giselle essentially saves everyone, we find out that her true love is indeed Robert and not Prince Edward as one would normally expect out of a fairytale, and Nancy ends up going with Edward back to Andalasia to have her animated happily ever after while Giselle, Robert, and Morgan have their own happily ever after in the real world. Does the sequel Disenchanted deliver the same trope-defying happily ever after? Let’s talk about it.
The Beginning of a Happily Never After
Disney+
Disenchanted opens much like the first movie with an animated sequence in the land of Andalasia. An animated critter is recounting the aftermath of the first movie by telling a bedtime story to its offspring while simultaneously narrating to the audience everything that happened in the years between. Giselle, Robert, and Morgan live happily together for quite a while after the events of the first movie. When the couple has a new baby, everything starts changing.
They have less space in their New York apartment, less time with each other, and less time with Morgan (this time played by Gabriella Baldacchino). In an attempt to hold tightly to their happily ever after, they decide to uproot and move out of the city into a suburb called Monroeville. Monroeville is a town run by one of the movie’s antagonists, Melvina Monroe.
New and Returning Cast in Monroeville
When Melvina Monroe (Maya Rudolf, SNL) is introduced with her two sidekicks Rosaleen (Yvette Nicole Brown, Community) and Ruby (Jayma Mays, Glee), it is clear that her goal is not to make Giselle and her family’s life any easier. Melvina runs the town, has an exceedingly high opinion of herself, and expects everyone else to see her that same way. Giselle’s optimism and whimsy quickly get on Melvina’s nerves.
Not long after moving in, Giselle, Robert, Morgan, and the new baby get a visit from Andalasia. Idina Menzel and James Marsden reprise their roles as Nancy and Prince Edward hailing from Andalasia with a special gift for Giselle and Robert’s baby, Sofia: a magical wishing wand that will grant any wish to someone with magical ties to Andalasia. They, of course, provide a warning with the gift of what could go wrong if it is not used properly foreshadowing events that take place later in the movie.
As the family continues to settle into their fixer-upper suburb home, things keep going wrong, and they keep feeling more unhappy despite the goal of the move bringing them closer together as a family. As Giselle’s sadness and frustration grow, she becomes more and more desperate to fix everything that is going wrong to try to maintain her happily ever after. In a truly distraught move, she decides to use the gifted wishing wand to wish for her life to be like the fairy tale that it used to be before she left Andalasia.
The Shift Back to a Classic Fairytale
Disney
After Giselle’s wish is granted, she wakes to find Monroeville transformed into Monrolasia with all the classic fairy tale tropes everyone knows. Melvina is obviously the evil queen of the town (with her equally ridiculous and fumbling sidekicks), Robert becomes a gallant prince off to fight whatever evil he can find, and Morgan becomes the princess.
Here is where we find the spell has backfired. Not only did the spell start to turn Giselle into an evil stepmother, but it also simultaneously destroys Andalasia bit by bit. Giselle ends up having to fight against the stroke of midnight to prevent herself from fully transforming into an evil stepmother and further ruining Morgan’s life. This is also a race to save Andalasia and the people she loves.
With her time quickly running out and her subsequent evil battle with Melvina for control, Giselle’s happily ever after seems farther and farther out of reach. Will Disenchanted end with a classic happily ever after, or will it give a new definition of a happy life? That’s for you to decide.
