I love a good fairy tale, and I was charmed by Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries, so I figured Ella Enchanted
was right up my alley. The 2004 movie stars Hathaway as Ella of Frell, a
girl who, like Sleeping Beauty before her, has been given a most
inconvenient present by an unhinged fairy. Unlike Maleficent, Lucinda
(Vivica Fox) doesn't mean for her gift to be a curse, but blessing the
infant Ella with "obedience" means that throughout her life, she must do
exactly what she is told, no matter what the task. Before her untimely
death, her mother (Donna Dent) forbids Ella to tell anyone about her
gift, lest that knowledge be used against her. But can such an unusual
attribute be kept secret forever?
While there are bits of
other fairy tales tossed in here and there, along with references to
Monty Python (Eric Idle serves as the rhyming narrator), Ella is
mostly a new twist on the story of Cinderella. After some background on
Ella's infancy and childhod, the tale resumes with the marriage of
Ella's father to the obnoxious and cosseted Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley),
who has two daughters: the cruel, scheming Hattie (Lucy Punch) and
ditzy, elastic-faced Olive (Jennifer Higham). Olive doesn't come into
the story much, but her facial expressions are so bizarre that when she
is on-screen, it's hard to focus on anyone else. Hattie is the one who
most actively undercuts Ella, especially once she begins to notice a
pattern behind the strange things her new step-sister does.
Ella does have allies: her aunt Mandy (Minnie Driver), a fairy of only
moderate talent, and her best friend Areida (Parminder Nagra). And she
finds more friends as she embarks on her journey to find Lucinda and beg
her to allow her to live a life free from the demands of others. Chief
among these are Slannen (Aiden McArdle), a rebellious elf who
desperately wants to be a lawyer, and Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), the
gorgeous prince who inspires Beatles-like furor among all the young
maidens of the kingdom - except Ella.
Her own peculiar form of
enslavement has made her extremely sympathetic to the plight of the
kingdom's mistreated beings - namely, the elves, who are only allowed to
work in the entertainment profession; the giants, who have been forced
into slave labor; and the ogres, who would be wiped out entirely if the
prince's diabolical uncle Edgar (Cary Elwes) had his way. She can't
understand why someone with Prince Char's influence isn't doing more to
help his kingdom, while the naive prince is just having his eyes opened
to the evils around him.
The film's premise is promising, and I
have a hunch that it is executed with rather more sophistication in the
Gail Carson Levine book on which the movie is based. The trouble is
that Ella is very clearly aimed at a tween audience and as such
is an extension of the sort of corny, noisy fare shown on Nickelodeon
and Disney nowadays. In trying to be hip by inserting contemporary
elements such as rock music, which really doesn't gel with the fantasy
setting, and references to current pop culture, it turns into a modern
mish-mash. This technique worked pretty well for Shrek, but partly because Ella is live action, it just seems silly here.
One of the strangest parts of the movie is Heston (Steve Coogan), a
sinister snake who acts as Edgar's henchman. I can buy cartoon villains
having talking animal henchmen, such as Iago in Aladdin and Bartok in Anastasia.
I can handle Lord Voldemort having a right-hand snake to whom he spouts
instructions in Parseltongue. But to have a snake in a live action film
just sitting there chatting away on the villain's shoulder is a little
too much for me. It immediately makes Edgar less intimidating, since he
just looks so ridiculous gabbing with that goofy snake. It's not that I
can't accept The Princess Bride's dashing farm boy as a bad guy; he was chilling in The Jungle Book. Here, however, he's just campy.
Hathaway is sweet and engaging, and she's a good sport for doing all
the crazy stuff the script calls for. There are a lot of cheesy special
effects and groan-worthy puns that come flying at the audience, and
there's likely to be some rolling of the eyes among anyone older than 15
or so, particularly with moments involving such gems of wit as the
flatulence of giants. I wish that the music didn't seem so out of place,
because Hathaway does have a very pleasant voice. I don't so much mind
her big karaoke number, though, because it shows us how Ella's obedience
actually can be a gift, since it forces her to use skills she
might not ordinarily have. This also comes to light in a scene in which
she rescues Slannen from distress with some impressive martial arts
moves.
Dancy is my favorite cast member and nearly the only
one who doesn't seem over-the-top. Not just a pretty face, the prince is
kind and considerate, though he's so intimidated by the idea of being
king that it seems he won't be much good for the kingdom. Meeting Ella
changes his perspective, awakening his activism. I also liked Areida,
but Ella's best friend is extremely underused after a nasty trick by
Hattie knocks her out of the picture. I was hoping that she would play
some sort of significant role later in Ella's adventures, coming to her
aid in a tight spot as a testament to her unconditional friendship, but
she only showed up for a moment at the end, just long enough to show us
that Hattie's damage had been undone.
I like the clever
reworking of the Cinderella story and the way Ella finally manages to
free herself from the bonds of obedience that Lucinda imposed upon her,
but of the several film versions of the classic fairy tale that I have
seen, this would be near the bottom of my list of recommendations. It's
nice that they seem to be encouraging social consciousness with this
fable, but the same point was achieved much more skillfully with Ever After, whereas the fantasy elements are most beautifully preserved in the Rodgers and Hammerstein version with Leslie Ann Warren. Tweens might get a kick out of this spunky retelling, but this 26-year-old was not especially enchanted.
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