Enchanted is enchanting!
It’s utterly predictable, completely over-the-top, and there’s not a single car chase in the movie. Nonetheless, it’s wonderfully refreshing and uplifting!
Enchanted is about what happens when a young lady leaves her fantasy/animated world and goes into the “real world” of New York City. Will, she change? Of course she will! How will she change? Well, that’s the story.
Gisele is the prototypical Disney princess. She lives in a world of Andalasia (just beyond the Meadows of Joy and the Valley of Contentment), where she converses with animals, sings songs every few minutes, and waits for her prince to come and sweep her off her feet. Sure enough, he shows up and off she goes with him to become his wife. They don’t know each other, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Edward’s evil step-mother, Queen Narissa, loses her crown if he marries. To keep this from happening, the queen morphs into an old lady and pushes Gisele into a magical well. It’s a magical because everyone who goes into it (and that ends up being quite a cast), ends up in a manhole in Times Square.
After emerging from the manhole, Gisele quickly meets up with Robert Philip and his daughter, Morgan. Robert is a divorce lawyer whose wife left him years ago. Gisele predictably wants to go back to Andalasia in order to marry Edward, and Robert wants to help her get back so he can get on with his life and his girlfriend of five years (Nancy). What follows is that Gisele and Robert are forced to adapt to the new “world” the other brings with them.
And as I said, it’s all quite predictable, but what makes it such a good story is Gisele. For the thing that makes Gisele so enchanting is that she takes all of the innocence and beauty of Andalasia and brings it into the world of New York City. She is naive in regard to the real world and has to adapt in certain ways (her wardrobe becomes noticeably less noticeable as the movie goes on), but she remains utterly unmoved that her “happily ever after” view of life does not need to be altered — regardless of what world she’s in. The following bit of conversation between her and Robert underscores this commitment.
(Gisele) “You have such strange ideas about love.”
(Robert) “Maybe we should do what you would do. You meet, have lunch, and get married.”
“You forgot about ‘happily ever after.’”
“Forget ‘happily ever after.’ It doesn’t exist.”
“Well of course it does.”
“I hate to disagree but marriages are a success if they manage not to end. Forget about happiness.”
“What about you and Nancy? You know that you will live happily ever after.”
“I don’t know if I’ll make it through today, let alone a lifetime. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, it’s complicated.”
“But it doesn’t have to be. Not if she knows.”
“Knows what?”
“How much you really love her.”
And so it goes. But it’s more than dialogue with Gisele—she wholeheartedly means it. When she meets a couple at Robert’s office who are in the process of divorcing, she starts to cry and says, It’s just so sad. The same thing happens when Robert discusses his wife leaving him. The world is tough stuff for a gal who wears her ideals on her sleeve, but she doesn’t back down.
And it’s beautiful. She’s brings the idealism of (romantic) love from her world and she lives it out in this one. She brings songs, hope, joy and life. Neither Robert nor Morgan stands a chance of not being enchanted by her.
And it’s no different with the Christ, is it? He came from another world—the one that He, God and the Spirit shared (see John 17:5). He came into the world we live in, with all of its gritty reality and refused to compromise His ideals about love. He brought songs, hope, joy and life. No ever lived or loved as He did. No one! How could anyone not be enchanted by Him?
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 