“Enchanted” is a household classic across the country. Throwing a fairytale princess into the real world is an easily captivating plot, and the cast pulled it off almost perfectly. These characters are nostalgic figures of our childhood, the soundtrack is memorable and catchy and the plot leaves us satisfied with its conclusion. 

Cast and characters

Overall, this set of cast members work well together to create an amazing film. The lead characters of Giselle and Robert Philip are played by Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey, respectively, both popular actors with good reputations and chemistry. Adams embodies the doe-eyed, clueless optimist well; she is a romantic who knows nothing about living in the real world yet somehow inspires hope and joy in the people around her. Her character grows immensely by the end, learning about concepts like sarcasm and the appreciation of a real relationship. 

On the other hand, Robert is a grumpy lawyer and single parent living in New York City. However, we see his character arc of love and growth in the song “That’s How You Know.” When Giselle becomes defensive about Robert’s pessimistic attitude towards Edward, we encounter the first fight between our two protagonists, leading to Giselle’s emotional growth as she develops real-world emotions. This scene denotes the first time the protagonists learn something from each other — Giselle learns how to label her new emotions while Robert learns how to listen. This is also the beginning of an iconic romance; the audience finally sees how much Robert truly likes Giselle. Instead of continuing to be closed off and frustrated with Giselle’s optimism and belief in magic, he hears her out. He considers her point of view, which is a touching moment of growth and the catalyst for their blossoming enchantment with each other.

Actress Rachel Covey played Morgan Philip, Robert’s 6-year-old daughter, who, in the beginning, is a shy girl not looking forward to having a stepmother. By the end, Giselle helps Morgan become more social and comfortable talking with adult figures by telling her stories before she goes to bed and teaching her how to have fun in the real world.

Nancy, played by actress Idina Menzel, is a businesswoman who has been dating Robert for five years and becomes jealous of Giselle when she finds out Giselle stayed overnight in Robert’s apartment. By the movie’s end, she accepts that Robert and Giselle are each other’s soulmates and decides to encourage their romance. Watching this as a kid, Nancy seemed like a villain — second to Narissa, the evil queen — getting in the way of Giselle and Robert’s relationship, but the way she realizes and accepts that Robert is Giselle’s true love shows significant character development and self-reflection. In fact, she’s the one to convince him to kiss Giselle in the end. 

Prince Edward — originally believed to be Giselle’s true love — acts as the comedic relief of this movie and is played by actor James Marsden. While Giselle is clueless about the real world, Edward just gives us dumb jock vibes. Though this characteristic can get repetitive, his entertaining yet weird journey through New York City makes him a lovable character in “Enchanted.”

With an amazing cast, great chemistry, and well-thought-out character development, we are left pleased with their interactions and each plot line at the end of the movie. 

Plot points and critiques

Similar to other classic Disney fairy tales like “Sleeping Beauty” and “The Jungle Book,” “Enchanted” begins with a storybook read to the audience. This cute homage then transitions the story into an animated scene where we are introduced to the lead character Giselle. Immediately, we are made aware of how cliche Giselle’s life is: she lives in a treehouse in the woods, seems to only have talking animals for friends and is searching for her prince. When she finds her prince, Edward, he saves her from an ogre, and they ride off into the sunset to be married the next morning. Your classic Disney fairytale.

The plot twist comes when Edward’s mother, the evil queen Narissa, pushes Giselle down a wishing well to maintain her reign as queen. Giselle climbs out of the well and into the streets of New York City. Dazed and confused, she topples right into Robert’s arms, paralleling her fall into Edward’s arms. Robert tries to get Giselle back to her home while she drags him around the city on her journey exploring the real world, creating some of the cutest scenes in the movie as Robert and Giselle begin to fall in love.

When Edward is finally reunited with Giselle, he whisks her off her feet and takes her on a date in the real world. Though we had to hold back tears when Robert’s daughter Morgan and Giselle separate when Giselle decides to go to the ball, she is reunited with Morgan to go shopping and spend some “grown-up girl bonding time.” Together they create Giselle’s look, one of the most iconic looks of live-action Disney.

At the ball, Robert and Giselle begin to dance, only to be interrupted by Edward, who is ready to return to Andalasia. Upon taking a bite of a poisoned apple given to her by a disguised Narissa, Giselle falls into a deep slumber that can only be awakened by — you guessed it! —  a true love’s kiss. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” obviously inspires this plotline, but it works in this film for us. To no one’s surprise, Edward’s kiss doesn’t work, and Robert is the one to awaken her. Narissa then commences the final battle of the movie, becoming an angry-evil-queen-turned-dragon. Remarkably replicating Maleficent’s transformation from “Sleeping Beauty,” the dragon animations were decent for a 15-year-old film. We love how Giselle saved Robert in the end, adding a twist to the cliches throughout the movie.

We love this movie, from Edward’s wacky adventures in New York City to Morgan’s adorable optimism and Giselle’s show-stopping look at the ball. The classic “happily ever after” conclusion is satisfying to the plot: the film ends with Pip, Giselle’s chipmunk sidekick, writing a storybook about Giselle’s journey. We see Giselle, Robert and Morgan happy in New York City and Nancy marrying Edward in Andalasia. We are not left wanting more, which is why the sequel came as a surprise. “Enchanted” stands alone as a wonderful nostalgic Disney movie. 

Soundtrack 

The “Enchanted” soundtrack is a dynamic yet simple masterpiece; we never realized how short this soundtrack is because of how memorable the songs are, truly defining the phrase “quality over quantity.” We were left dancing with the characters at the end of every song. 

“Enchanted” opens with Giselle singing about dreams of finding her Prince Charming in the song “True Love’s Kiss.” This movie would not be the same without its classic storybook beginning, and this enticing song is the perfect way to introduce it. Similarly, the snappy sing-along “That’s How You Know” plays an important role in character development. Whereas Robert originally stated, “I don’t sing” and “I don’t dance,” we find him smiling and nodding his head along to the song by the end, leading to his first acceptance of Giselle and the beginning of their love story. 

The remainder of the songs are essential to Giselle and Robert’s relationship. While they dance together to “So Close” during The King and Queen’s Waltz at the beginning of their relationship, the closing song, “Ever Ever After,” gives us a little bit more information about what happens after Giselle and Robert start to live happily ever after. Both songs are romantic and overall heart-melting. The chemistry they portray in both scenes the songs accompany is breathtaking compared to the cringey “relationship” we see between Giselle and Edward. Not to mention, the choice of Carrie Underwood in “Ever Ever After” matches the other vocals in this movie so well that, as kids, we didn’t realize Adams didn’t sing this song.

This amazing soundtrack brings another added sense of magic and happiness to this movie. Even though it has been years since we have seen this movie, the lyrics to these memorable and captivating songs came right back to our memories as we sang along with Giselle and the other characters. Without songs like “That’s How You Know” and “So Close,” the movie would have missed major moments of character development and opportunity to draw the audience in more. We were happy to revisit the songs in this movie and continue to hum their catchy toons for the rest of the week. 

Pathfinder Ranking: 9/10

Overall, this movie is a perfect mix of classical Disney fairytales with memorable and catchy songs that keep the viewer interested and singing along. We love the captivating soundtrack, seamless fairytale style and the organic chemistry of the characters. The plotline is lighthearted and entertaining. Although there are multiple Disney references and a few similar plotlines to other tales we have heard before, there is still some unpredictability to this movie that keeps us hanging on to every moment.