J and I are Amy Adams's biggest fans, so we couldn't wait to see Enchanted. I think the word I see most often used to describe her is "incandescent," and she is. The rest of the cast is great too, but I could barely keep track of what was going on in the scenes she's not in, because my mind was going c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon until she reappeared.Most of the reviews I've read this morning, the positive ones anyway, say that Amy Adams makes the movie. She certainly lights it up, but it's a pretty interesting film for other reasons, too. The big musical numbers are hilarious and thrilling. Each new layer of Busby Berkeley nonsense they added on to the Central Park number made me laugh hard and I still teared up at the end. Is it ironic? Or is it us? Is the production number in Central Park any more ironic than Clang, Clang, Clang Went the Trolley?
There are obvious clues that you're not supposed to take it too seriously, like when the princess summons the rats and cockroaches to help her, Cinderella style, clean the lawyer's apartment. But the song they sing is the real deal. You know because Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz wrote it. It is, simultaneously, the thing and a parody of the thing. I'm sure there's a fancy-schmancy word for that. Postmodernism?
But in the end the movie, like a cat that falls out the window and does a couple of flips but lands on its feet, turns out to be selling the regressive Disney happily-ever-after fantasy after all. Which -- because I was thinking how'd you do that? instead of oh, please! -- ends up being satisfying instead of infuriating.
Why is it that, even when you know it's a load of crap, it's so much fun to believe it for a couple hours? It may only be because I want so badly for Amy Adams to be happy.
