Enchanted is a Disney film that requires a certain kind of surrender to enjoy. You have to be willing to let it work on you rather than watching it from a critical distance. If you are, it is genuinely delightful.
The Concept
An animated fairy-tale princess — Giselle, voiced and then played by Amy Adams — is pushed through a magic well into modern-day New York City. She arrives in Times Square with her animated woodland creature friends, her unshakeable optimism, and her absolute conviction that true love and happily-ever-after are real and available to anyone who believes.
The joke, of course, is that New York City is the least enchanted place on earth. And the film plays this contrast with genuine wit. Giselle’s innocent bewilderment at the cynicism and complexity of modern life is funny in the ways you expect. What is less expected is that the film also lets her be right about some things.
Amy Adams
The film would not work without its central performance. Amy Adams plays Giselle as fully committed, never winking at the audience, maintaining the character’s essential goodness through every absurd situation. That sincerity is what makes the film emotionally functional rather than just clever.
There is something worth examining in the film’s core argument: that innocence and optimism are not naive delusions but genuine tools for making the world slightly better than you found it. Enchanted makes that case entertainingly and, by the end, rather movingly.