Release Date: April 9, 2004
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Hugh Dancy, Aidan McArdle, Cary Elwes, Minnie Driver, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Punch, Jennifer Higham, Parminder K. Nagra
Directed by: Tommy O'Haver
Written by: Laurie Craig, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith
Distributed by: Miramax Films
MPAA Rating: PG (some crude humor and language)
Anne Hathaway, the 21-year-old actress who has the lead in Ella Enchanted, is one of those stars created by Hollywood to fill a gap -- in this case, a shortage of young actresses who can play a princess. No, really. It’s true. Before this, Hathaway was in The Princess Diaries, and following this, she will appear in the sequel to that movie, and in all three she plays a regular girl who winds up a princess by the time the end credits roll (which makes you wonder how she ever let Julia Stiles get the lead in The Prince & Me). Now actors usually deplore this sort of typecasting, but when you’ve been made like Hathaway, you probably don’t have any choice. Unfortunately, the act is still wearing thin; viewers will surely wonder how she can still show any surprise when the happy ending finally makes it her way.
Aside from this meta-Pygmalion complex, Ella Enchanted is also part of a small and mostly forgotten subgenre of fantasy films that briefly flourished around the turn of the century -- the fairy tale updated, with as many anachronisms as possible encouraged (two of Ella’s writers, in fact, are Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who collaborated on the comparably-themed 10 Things I Hate About You). This movie is a halfway modern take on Cinderella: it’s still set in a vaguely medieval time period, but the characters all seem to have been plucked from the 21st century. It’s sort of a girly version of A Knight’s Tale.
Hathaway plays the heroine, a headstrong young woman named Ella (which, presumably, is short for Cinderella), whose mean-spirited fairy godmother (Vivica A. Fox) bestows her with the gift/curse of unfailing obedience. When her ugly stepsisters (Lucy Punch and Jennifer Higham) -- who are devoted fans of the pretty-boy Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy) and are upset that Ella questions the prince’s politics -- discover this, they immediately set her to trouble, making Ella steal things from stores and having her tearfully insult her best friend (Parminder K. Nagra).
Eventually Ella decides she’s had enough, and, with the help of her house-fairy (Minnie Driver), she sets out on a quest to find her fairy godmother and get her to remove the curse. This, of course, is not as simple as it sounds, and soon she’s on an adventure through treacherous country with the help of an elf named Slannen (Aidan McArdle), and, after a while, Prince Charmont himself.
Slapped together by Miramax on what seems to have been a shoestring budget, Ella Enchanted has the look, feel, and production values of a made-for-TV movie. None of the sets, from the bustling medieval market to the enchanted forest, seem particularly inspired, and all of them have the cramped, poorly lit atmosphere of a studio soundstage. Hollywood, having decided that Hathaway is their girl to play the princess, apparently then decided that was far enough, pulling the plug on giving her proper treatment. If she’s going to play the princess, why couldn’t she at least show up as, say, Helen of Troy?
Perhaps it’s because Hathaway is competent at best but disappointingly flat for most of the movie, a deficit that not even Ella’s abysmal special effects can cover up. At times she seems ashamed of her own screen presence, as though she’s afraid to draw too much attention to herself -- not exactly the sort of modesty you want in the star of your picture. Luckily she is a better singer than she is an actress, which means that she really gets to shine in the movie’s handful of musical numbers (including a version of Queen’s “Somebody to Love” that, admittedly, brings down the house about halfway through).
But the rest of the cast is also fairly uninspired. Hugh Dancy, as Prince Charmont, is your typical English actor, a bloke who relies more on his elegant, postured delivery than his all-around acting skills (think Hugh Grant Lite). Bigger names, like Minnie Driver, Vivica A. Fox, and Cary Elwes (who plays the prince’s evil uncle, who is secretly plotting to have the prince killed so he can claim the throne) are wasted in smaller roles, although Elwes does have a good time as the film’s main villain -- he’s always had a talent for injecting wry comedy into even the most mundane dialogue.
Nobody could inject life into this mundane plot, though, and to be sure, it needs a shot of something. Ella and Prince Charmont eventually discover they have feelings for one another and get to dance at a ball for the prince’s coronation in the final act, and then there’s a bit of scrapping and running around when true identities and purposes are revealed. But everything is hastily resolved in time for another song-and-dance bit before the final curtain. Like nobody saw that one coming.
If anything, Ella Enchanted makes you wonder how Hathaway is ever going to get out of the casting corner she has so willingly backed herself into -- and whether it’s even worth it. Because while there may be a shortage of young actresses who are willing to play the princess parts, there is certainly no shortage of young actresses, and in direct competition with all the rest of them, Hathaway would probably sink rather than swim.
-- Craig Roush (craigroush@hotmail.com)