WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Disenchanted.Disenchanted – Disney’s long-awaited Enchanted sequel – completely misses the point of the original movie. It’s been fifteen years since the original movie was released in theaters, affectionately subverting Disney fairytale conventions in the process. Enchanted starred Amy Adams as Giselle from the kingdom of Andalasia, who finds herself in contemporary New York. Disenchanted picks up Giselle’s story fifteen years later, relocating the action to the suburbs, but the relocation misses the point of the original movie.
The comedy of Enchanted came from the clash of cultures between fairytales and the contemporary city. One of the funniest scenes saw Giselle summon the local wildlife to help her clean the apartment of Robert (Patrick Dempsey), as a thank-you for rescuing her. As New York is a city and not a fairytale kingdom, the local wildlife comprises rats, cockroaches, and pigeons, much to the horror of Robert and his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). In relocating Disenchanted to an idyllic suburb, the Enchanted sequel loses the culture clash comedy that made the original movie so successful.
Disenchanted’s Monroeville Already Feels Unreal
While Monroeville must, to a certain extent, feel like a fairytale to justify Giselle’s desire to move there, it immediately feels artificial. The billboard advertising the community suggests that it’s a new suburban housing development, but if so, the ramshackle castle that Giselle and her family move into makes no sense. The intention is clearly to show Giselle that this idyllic neighborhood isn’t a fairytale kingdom and is full of petty rivalries and rigid power structures of the suburbs. There’s a great concept there, but because Monroeville never feels like a real place, Disenchanted struggles to emphasize that disparity between the idyll and the reality.
Compared to the Enchanted movie, the sequel doesn’t have the recognizable reality of a bustling metropolis like New York. Everything in Monroeville is ordered, like a fictional town, and Giselle’s attempts to fit into the social circle of Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph) just play out like a derivative suburban drama. Morgan even comments on this when she realizes her new high school is the clichéd American high school jungle from Hollywood movies. This isn’t necessarily a problem, as Enchanted was all about upturning genre expectations, but Disenchanted doesn’t do anything with the enticing culture clash of the animated fairytale and the suburban melodrama.
Enchanted’s Sequel Has No Culture Clash
Disappointed that her fairytale life isn’t living up to her expectations, Giselle makes a wish for a more magical life. This leads to the literal fusing of Monroeville with Andalasia, but the problem is that, rather than allow the residents of Monroeville to retain their personalities, it turns the Disenchanted cast into fairytale characters. This means that Disenchanted misses the perfect sequel opportunity. For example, Patrick Dempsey’s Robert is having an existential crisis prior to Giselle’s spell, and spends the rest of Disenchanted attempting to play the role of a heroic knight.
The scenes of Robert attempting to defeat dragons and ogres would be far funnier if he was an overwhelmed lawyer forced into a fairytale role. Similarly, Giselle’s transition into being a wicked stepmother is a great concept for an Enchanted sequel, but because she’s also the only character who’s aware of what’s happened to Monroeville, the arc becomes weighed down and convoluted. The only sense of a flipping of the original movie comes when Morgan (played by Gabriella Baldacchino) is briefly sent to the animated kingdom of Andalasia, but by then it’s in a dire state thanks to Giselle’s spell. As a result, Disenchanted is a poorly conceived sequel that sadly misses the central appeal of the original movie.
