I watched two movies this weekend. One was Disney's Enchanted, which was delightful. In case you don't know already, it is the story of a handful of typical Disney characters who cross the barrier between the cartoon kosmos and post-Giuliani New York. Thus the first quarter of the film is an animated parody of Disney's ancient triumphs: Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. The rest of it is live action, though with some excellent computer graphics thrown in. Even in New York its hard to find an actual dragon, let alone one that looks like Susan Sarandon. Disney is already polished at self-parody, and this project fits pretty well with the Pirates and Haunted Mansion movies.
Enchanted follows a familiar theme of modern fantasy: a mysterious visitor brings romance and magic to lives that desperately need it. Amy Adams, who looks strikingly like the Little Mermaid (I bet that occurred to the casting director), plays the would-be princess Giselle. Having been thrown down a magic well in animated Andalasia, Giselle pops out a man-hole cover in NYC. Fortunately, the power she had back home to muster an instant alliance of song birds, chipmunks, and field mice, works equally well on pigeons, sewer rats, and cockroaches, not to mention lawyers and unionized public road workers.
Of course, you can't run away from your troubles. I hear there's no place that far. She is followed by her prince, who tries to kill a bus with his sword, and the evil queen's henchman. Timothy Spall carries his character Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail) in the Harry Potter movies right over into this one. The only thing is, he looks disturbingly like Christopher Hitchens. I wonder if the casting director was reading God is Not Great when he make this call.
The other movie I watched was Miracle on 34th Street, which my family has been viewing most every Thanksgiving for several decades. We watch only the 1947 black and white version, thank you. This movie is a great example of how a great story and some fine actors can overcome lackluster studio support and very uneven directing. Fred Gwen will always be Santa Claus in my book, and Natalie Wood (Suzy Walker) does the best job of acting on the part of any child actor I have ever seen.
In a Christmas classic you expect lots of charm and demand salvation by the end. But M34th delivers a lot more than that. It is an astonishingly intelligent movie. All the action is driven by the various supporting characters as they adopt and sometimes change their positions on what amounts to a theological question: who is this old man who calls himself Kris Kringle? To some he is a tool for raking in Christmas dollars. Little Suzy is at first a skeptic, trained by her disillusioned mother (Maureen O'Hara). Later she tries faith, and her faith is rewarded. The lawyer, Fred Gailey (John Payne), accepts Kris for what he stands for: the spirit of Christmas.
There is only one villain in the movie: the neurotic amateur psychologist Sawyer. But he is merely a catalyst for the action. The crisis occurs because the institutions involved (law courts and public mental health officials) are not well-equipped to deal with such a creature as Mr. Kringle. Best of all, the climax is played out in a judicial hearing. In case you haven't seen it at least once, the judge must decide whether to commit Mr. Kringle because the latter claims to be Santa Claus. Once at court, the drama takes the form of an implausible but perfectly logical legal argument. "Your honor," says Gailey, beginning his defense, "I intend to prove that Mr. Kringle is Santa Claus." To do that, he must first establish the existence of Santa Claus. That he does with the help of one expert witness, the prosecuting attorney's little boy. Next, he must prove that Kris Kringle is the Santa Claus. This he does with the help of a band of angels in the form of the US Post Office. But this is no deus ex machina. Victory is achieved because of a change of heart on the part of little Suzy and her mother, who write a single letter to Kris, addressed to the court house.
Enchanted is not likely to end up a classic, like M34th. But there is a connection between the two movies. The Father/love interest in the former is much like the mother in the latter. Both have lost the ability to fall in love because they have lost their faith. Getting the latter back is the story in both movies.
Recent Comments