Enchanted was in fact a very interesting film, because although its premise suggests the impossibility of "happy endings", at the end of the movie, there is not only one happy ending, but four of them.
Giselle is taken out of her world and brought into our reality, where apparently no happy endings, or fairytales exist; she is confronted with a strange world that denies everything she believes in, and everything she is.
Here she meets a divorce attorney whose name is Robert, her opposite, who does not believe in love or anything that involves fantasy-like, "dreams come true" situations.
Gradually, our reality persuades her, although, at first she is disappointed by the fact that love consists of many more complexities than she once originaly thought.
She lives through many strange situations with Robert and finally changes her mind and decides to give "our" concepts of love and happiness a chance, because, of course, she has fallen in love with Robert, who also begins to have a different opinion on love.
At this point, Edward, Giselle's love, the prince, finally finds her, and she has to make the most important decision in her life, whether she embraces forever her vague, "fairytalish" concept of love or she accepts our "more real" definition of it.
Here the story becomes even more fantastic and "fairytalish" than the ones we are used to seeing when watching a Disney film. The collision of the two worlds results in a ridiculous amount of not only fantastic, happy endings, but ludicrous, heroic finales, which are even more outrageous.
Despite its simililarities to the Greek tragedy at its beginning, being that the oracle where she dreams of her prince and fate, drive the story line of the movie; as well as the witches' fear, that is made a reality that she provokes unconsciously. In the end, it is just another fairytale that attempts futilely to state that reality, with its varied range of emotions and situations, is better than fiction, but clearly this film does not achieve this.
Enchanted is undoubtedly the kind of movie I would choose to watch on a rainy Sunday with my little sister.
Teacher's note: Not one but four happy endings. And a Greek tragedy. Great imagination and insight from this author. Thanks for a generous and super cool post.
--mike
www.moviesgrowenglish.com 