Disenchanted has some charms and delights

A sequel to a popular Disney hit has some charms and delights, but also some disappointments.

Disenchanted has some charms and delights.

If there’s one trope of fairytales, it’s the happily ever after ending.

It’s what every prince or princess, every troll and villain is chasing. Everyone wants their happily ever after, and that’s what Giselle was after in the unabashedly earnest Enchanted.

After a few twists, Giselle got her happily ever after with not Prince Edward, whose poofy shoulders would fit in at any brunch date in 2022, but with divorce lawyer Robert and together they begin their perfect life in Manhattan.

Of course, we know happily ever afters are a bit more complex, and Disenchanted explores this reality check by returning to Giselle and Robert’s world after a decade.

Disenchanted is a decade-later sequel. Picture: Disney

Giselle (Amy Adams) and Robert (Patrick Dempsey) are just about to call time on Manhattan with a move to the suburbs, where there’s more space for their growing family, which includes baby Sophia. So, they pack themselves off in their people mover and join the suburbanites.

Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino), Robert’s now teenage daughter, is furious at being uprooted from her city life, and she’s particularly mad at Giselle for the changes. No teenage New Yorker wants to move to a sanitised town with little excitement.

Everyone is struggling with the adjustment – Robert despairs at the thought of his long train commutes for the rest of his working life while even Giselle can’t crack the neighbourhood cabal ruled by the imperious Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph).

When Edward (James Marsden) and Nancy (Idina Menzel, who finally gets to sing) pop in from the animated Andalasia for a visit, they bring with them a house-warming gift of a magical wand.

James Marsden and Idina Menzel return in Disenchanted. Picture: Jonathan Hession/Disney

If you ever need a lesson about be careful what you wish for, and also don’t use magic as a shortcut to sorting out your life, this is it. Giselle, longing for the seemingly simpler and whimsical ways of Andalasia, wishes her life was a fairytale.

Big mistake. Along with the talking animal companions, floral garlands and elaborate gowns of fairytale life, there’s also the more black-and-white binaries of good and evil.

Giselle, as stepmother to Morgan, begins to morph into the familiar villain stereotype. And if she doesn’t reverse everything before midnight, the changes will be permanent.

The premise to Disenchanted has promise, this idea of the compromises and difficulties that follow the happily ever after moment.

What does it mean to move to a new place where your usual charms and good fortune isn’t enough? Giselle is used to being liked, she’s not used to not having everything fall her way.

That’s rich territory to explore, and while that’s where it starts, Disenchanted largely drops that thread when the over-the-top action really kicks off.

Maya Rudolph relishes in the fun of villainy in Disenchanted. Picture: Jonathan Hession/Disney

It swings behind the emotional core of the film, which is the relationship between Giselle and Morgan as the former tries to fight the evil stepmother trope and Morgan has to find the right magic to save everyone.

It’s an expected turn but a somewhat disappointing one. It would’ve been fascinating to explore what happens when life turns out differently to what you expected.

In that scenario, the antagonist is the drudgery of the mundane, and not the grand conflicts of a larger-than-life villain – although a musical face-off between Adams and Rudolph’s heightened characters still offered devilish delights.

But maybe it was too much to hope that Disenchanted would stray too far from that fairytale trope.

Rating: 2.5/5

Disenchanted is streaming now on Disney+