The story feels like it’s trying to be too many things at once and it doesn’t quite work. Giselle and Robert have a baby girl named Sofia while Morgan is now a moody teenager. The exhaustion of new parenthood and a strained relationship with Morgan persuade the family to move to the suburban town of Monroeville. When things don’t get easier, Giselle uses an Andalasian wand to wish that they had the perfect fairy tale life. Unfortunately, the perfect fairy tale usually involves a wicked stepmother and Giselle finds herself, unintentionally, turning into one.
Disenchanted is a film about a stepmother and her adopted daughter. It has an admirable objective, but the film falls short of it halfway through.
In this instalment, we follow Giselle as she begins to explore the new world of Monrolasia and its evil queen. This world has a massive potential to make a hard-hitting statement on negative emotions and imperfect relationships. However, the plot instead wraps itself around the new fantasy world of Monrolasia and its evil queen.
It’s a nice watch and Morgan still plays an important role, but her relationship with Giselle isn’t explored as it could. Instead, it takes a backseat right until the climax where a few heartfelt words seem to solve the entire problem.
Giselle’s descent into her wicked stepmother alter ego is a powerful and compelling story. Amy Adams flits between the sweet, kindly Giselle and the cruel, vain stepmother with ease, her expression and tone of voice switching from one to the other at a drop of a hat. You can’t take your eyes off her as she does it.
The film is not as good as its predecessor. The songs are forgettable and the CGI is not as good.
Adams is a strong presence in the film, but the script and lack of emotional depth makes her performance feel heavy.
The ending of the novel is a disenchanted one that is explained in depth.
