Enchanted Parent Guide
Some day my prince will come.
Parent Movie Review
Aside from Mickey Mouse, Disney Studios may be best known for their assortment of fairytale princesses. Beginning with Snow White , these lovely ladies sing away their woes (often with the help of their animal friends) while waiting for their Prince to arrive and whisk them off to happily ever after.
From all appearances, Giselle (Amy Adams) is no different. Living in a cartoon forest, she and her woodland friends croon through an upbeat tune in anticipation of the regal arrival of the man of her dreams. In the meantime, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) has her stepson, Prince Edward (James Marsden), tied up with troll hunting in an attempt to keep him from finding his true love. Yet as fate would have it, the two meet and plan to marry the following day. Stepping in to stop the ceremony, the Queen banishes Giselle to a strange and foreign land known as modern day New York City.
Popping up in a manhole, the now real life Giselle is terrified by her new surroundings and wanders the streets in search of the castle. Luckily along the way, she meets Robert (Patrick Dempsey), a disillusioned divorce lawyer who is about to propose to his girlfriend, Nancy (Idina Menzel). Going against his better judgment, Robert and his six-year-old daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey), bring the disheveled and disoriented “princess” home for the night. By morning, Giselle has sewn a new dress and cleaned up the place with the help of some sewer rats and other assorted city critters.
While her naivete worries Robert, her optimism slowly begins to rub off on him. Unsure whether she is for real or just delusional, the cynical lawyer soon finds himself tutoring Giselle about love and life in the modern world.
This charming collision of the animated Andalasia with real-life Manhattan takes an age-old genre and tweaks it for contemporary audiences. Viewers get plenty to laugh about as the innocent Giselle navigates the unfamiliar streets of the Big Apple and learns to take a more sensible approach to falling in love. While the film has few language concerns and brief moments of sexual innuendo, this princess is busting out all over in her self-made clothing. The script also contains some perilous moments for the characters, including a hideous monster that swoops down on the city.
Fortunately Giselle’s unexpected experience doesn’t dampen her cheerful attitude, which inspires others to have a more positive outlook on life. And while audiences can laugh at the romantic notions promoted in classic Disney tales, most of us will still enjoy this happily ever after ending.
Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Susan Sarandon.. Running time: 107 minutes. Theatrical release November 20, 2007. Updated June 1, 2020About author
Enchanted
Rating & Content Info
Why is Enchanted rated PG? Enchanted is rated PG by the MPAA for some scary images and mild innuendo.
Arriving in New York City, this wide-eyed princess gets an introduction to a homeless man, unfriendly residents and some prostitutes. Luckily, she also meets a more convivial citizen who catches her when she falls from a perch on a billboard. Upon his arrival in the city, the sword-wielding Prince Edward holds his weapon to the neck of a man and later uses it to stab a bus. Giselle’s chipmunk friend is hung in the closet on a pant hanger, threatened with a knife and seemingly thrown into a fire. (The little critter and a dog are also shown defecating and urinating.) Characters find themselves in other perilous dilemmas involving poisoned apples, bike crashes and traffic. Later a character turns into a frightening monster that scales a high-rise building with another character in its clutches. Low-cut gowns and a shower scene, where Giselle’s animal friends conveniently maintain her modestly, are contained in the script along with some brief sexual innuendo and the infrequent use of a mild profanity.
Page last updated June 1, 2020
Enchanted Parents' Guide
What do Giselle and Robert each teach the other about love? How do they moderate the other’s view of romance?
How does Giselle’s cheery attitude affect those around her? What impact does it have on the couple involved in divorce proceedings? What influence can a person’s outlook on life, either optimistic or pessimistic, have on others?
Are “happily ever afters” achievable in real life? What sacrifices would be needed to make relationships succeed?
Loved this movie? Try these books…
Readers looking for more princess stories should find a copy of "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine, which re-imagines the story of Cinderella, with a dangerous spell, and even more devious stepmother, and a slightly hapless Prince Charming. Younger kids might like Robert Munsch' "The Paper Bag Princess", in which the damsel is neither in distress nor in need of rescue.
Being engaged to the prince isn’t quite what Ella imagined. Find out what happens to the scullery maid turned princess-to-be in Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Just Ella. The Cinderella story is also reimagined in Soot and Slipper by Kate Stradling.
Gail Carson Levine puts a musical spin on the story of a magic mirror in Fairest.
Enchanted hilariously spoofs fairy tale tropes. Fractured fairy tales do the same. Author Vivian Vande Velde playfully skewers a well known tale in The Rumpelstiltskin Problem. She also tackles fairy tale tropes in Wizard at Work, Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird, Three Good Deeds, and A Hidden Magic.
Jean Ferris also has fun with the genre in Once Upon a Marigold in which a young man who has been raised by a troll begins conversing via carrier pigeon with a lonely young woman, who just happens to be a princess.
Young readers will enjoy fractured fairy tales in picture book form. Ninja Red Riding Hood by Corey Rosen Schwartz will keep them laughing. Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems features the well known blonde, but this time she runs into dinosaurs who eat chocolate pudding (and clueless children). Ezra Stein’s Interrupting Chicken features an excitable character who wants to change the endings to her favorite stories. Jon Scieszka hilariously turns a beloved story on its head in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, in which we hear the wolf’s side of things. Cinderella Penguin by Janet Perlman tells the traditional tale with sly jokes that will keep parents laughing along with their kids.
Home Video
The most recent home video release of Enchanted movie is March 11, 2008. Here are some details…
Get swept off you feet with Disney’s DVD release of Enchanted, which includes bloopers, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes (for the Happy Working Song, That’s How You Know and A Blast At The Ball), and an interactive game (Pip’s Predicament: A Pop-Up Adventure). Audio tracks are available in English (DTS 5.1 Surround and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround), French and Spanish, with subtitles in French and Spanish.
If you chose the Blu-ray edition of Enchanted, you will also receive The D-Files, a game where viewers try to spot the hidden references to Disney films found throughout the movie. High scorers will be rewarded with three videos: So Close, Making Ever, Ever After and True Love’s Kiss.
Related home video titles:
Enchanted is full of tidbits from other fairytales including a grumpy little man like the one found in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and a beautiful clear slipper as in Cinderella. In Kate and Leopold another aristocratic character has to adapt to modern life after he is mysteriously transported through time to New York City. Another fairy-tale mashup is Ella Enchanted, which features dangerous monsters, a charming prince, and an unlikely princess. In Tangled, a young princess who has lived in a small sheltered tower is exposed to the wide world, and finds it more dangerous than she expected.
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