Ella Enchanted

I'm back! Sorry about the delay in getting this review up—I had a very productive week, but unfortunately it came at the expense of the blog. As I mentioned in my previous entry, today we're taking a look at Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.

It's a bit of a toss-up whether you've heard of this or not, and if you have, whether the first thing that comes to mind is the book or the movie. Ella Enchanted the book was published in 1997 and received the Newbery Honor award in 1998. Gail Carson Levine has written a number of children's and young adult books since then, but Ella Enchanted was her first children's novel. The movie is very different from the book, and there's a lot I could say about it, but Gail Carson Levine actually did an interview on this very subject. She has some fascinating things to say about the way the book was changed and what she thinks of the result!

In case you're familiar with neither book or movie, Ella Enchanted is a retelling of Cinderella. Of course, there have been many, many variations of this story throughout the years, but this one sets itself apart in some very unusual ways. The story takes place in a fantasy land, not a real world setting, and Ella has a very spunky personality. In a lot of ways I would describe her as a "Postmodern Princess", which is one reason why I led up to this review with my previous two articles! Since Ella is the character who drives the entire story, let's take a look at her in more detail.

Traditionally, Cinderella in particular, and fairy tale princesses in general, have always been rather passive characters. Cinderella wishes and dreams, and eventually her fairy godmother comes along to make those dreams come true. Cinderella doesn't actually have to do much herself, except be sweet and pretty. (Gail Carson Levine said this is one reason she wrote Ella the way she did, because the original Cinderella was far too much of a goody-two-shoes, and she would hate her within ten minutes.) Ella has a similar background to Cinderella from the story—mother passed away, father remarried, her stepmother and two stepsisters treat her horribly—but her personality is totally different. We begin the story shortly after Ella's birth. It seems that fairies exist in this world, but they usually keep their magic to themselves and don't generally let on that they are fairies, or do anything really major in the way of spellcasting. There is an exception—Lucinda, who does her best to fit every fairy stereotype in existence. She is not Ella's fairy godmother, but she does show up at Ella's birth and bestows what she thinks of as a gift: the gift of obedience. Simply put, Ella must do anything she is told, no matter what it is, and no matter who tells her to do it. She finds it physically impossible to resist for more than a minute or two. To realize what an awful idea this is, you only have to imagine someone telling her to do harm to herself or someone else. Ella's mother and housekeeper (a fairy herself, and Ella's actual godmother, as we later learn) realize what a terrible "gift" this is and ask Lucinda to take it back, but Lucinda is positive that all her gifts are excellent ideas, and if anyone doesn't like them, maybe they'd like life as a cute, fuzzy squirrel a little better. Because of the general rule forbidding fairies to do much magic, no one but Lucinda can take the curse back, since she's the only one willing to break that rule. Since she won't do it, Ella grows up cursed with obedience.

This is the defining trait that separates Ella from all previous Cinderella characters that have gone before. She might have been a classic Disney goody-two-shoes, or she might have been a more modern spunky tomboy, but instead she's caught somewhere in between—she has a fun but strongly independent personality, but she is forced by the curse to do what she is told and behave. What's fascinating about the character is how she deals with this, and the little ways in which she rebels and attempts to take control of her own life. You could see this as representing the way that young women are constrained by societal norms, which works well with the book as a story about breaking free and discovering and asserting one's identity.

We learn about Ella's childhood and what a fun-loving woman her mother was. She was sweet but also mischievous, and she seldom gave Ella orders. One of the rare ones she did give was a command never to tell anyone about the curse, so that no one could take advantage of it. Of course, although not knowing about the curse makes it harder for people to use it, unfortunate results can still happen by accident, and as we see later, it's not impossible for others to figure it out on their own. It's also very difficult to explain some of the situations Ella finds herself in without telling anyone about the curse. Ella's father, a merchant spends most of Ella's childhood away on business trips. She is never very close to him, and neither Mandy nor his wife ever tell him about his daughter's curse. Ella's mother dies of illness when Ella is fourteen, which is that catalyst that sends her life spinning out of control.

Ella meets Prince Charmont (French for charming, of course) when he attends her mother's funeral. He comforts her and she amuses him with her witty sense of humor, and the beginnnigs of friendship begin to take place. At the funeral reception, Ella meets Dame Olga and her two daughters, Hattie and Olive, who are very full of themselves and rather rude. After the funeral, Ella's father isn't sure what to do with her, so he sends her off to finishing school. Ella rides there in a coach with Hattie and Olive, and although Olive is too stupid to ever really figure it out, Hattie soon discovers the curse and uses it to torment Ella all the way to the school—forbidding her to eat, making her do chores for them, demanding she give up her prized possessions such as her mother's necklace. Things don't get much better when they arrive at the school, where Ella is too clumsy and not refined enough to please her teachers, at least at first. She does make a friend there, a foreign girl named Areida. Over time she begins to do better at her lessons (since she has to do exactly what her teachers tell her, like it or not).

Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before Hattie's vindictive nature gets the better of her, and she objects to Ella's foreign best friend. She tells her to end her friendship with Areida, and of course Ella must obey. She can't stand the thought of hurting Areida though, so she makes up her mind to run away from the school and go in search of Lucinda, in an attempt to get her to take the "gift" back. She discovers that Lucinda will be attending a giant wedding, so she sets out alone. Traveling alone isn't easy for a young woman, though, even one with a knack for languages and a way with the nonhumans that she comes across. (When encountering an elven village, she makes a far better impression on them than her father did when he was there, trading wares.) When she encounters ogres, she finds that she is way out of her depth. Ogres in this world are nasty creatures that eat people, but they have a way of speaking that can convince a person of almost anything. It's very difficult to resist what they say, even if you are not cursed with obedience as Ella is. She is only fortunate that the ogres who capture her don't eat her right away, and she practices her skills of mimicry until she can imitate their language and tone of voice to convince them to go to sleep. While she is trying to figure out what else she can do, as she has been commanded not to leave the ogres' camp, Char and his entourage of knights show up and rescue her. Before leaving, Char sends one of his knights with Ella as an escort to the giants' village.

Ella reaches the village without further mishap and is welcomed by the giants, who are extremely friendly creatures, and witnesses a giant wedding that is marred only by a horrible "gift" given by Lucinda. When Ella speaks with her afterward, the fairy refuses to take back her gift and tells Ella to be happy to be obedient. This is phrased as an order, so naturally, Ella is delighted and no longer wishes to get rid of the gift. She finds her father, who is surprised to see her but is pleased by her suddenly compliant nature. He takes Ella home in his carriage and tells her he has suffered financial ruin from a bad business deal, so she must marry a rich man to get him out of his trouble. Ella is happy to do as she is told and joyfully announces it to Mandy as soon as they arrive home. Mandy is horrified to learn what Lucinda did to her this time. After a dinner with an older noble at which Ella flirts shamelessly, Mandy finally figures out that it was an order and not another gift that made Ella glad to obey orders, so she countermands it with an order to feel however she wishes to feel. Now more or less back to normal, Ella is disgusted with her behavior and the attitude she was forced to have. Not having control over one's own mind is worse than not controlling one's actions.

Ella's father changes his mind about the marriage when it turns out the nobleman is newly destitute as well. Instead, he chooses to marry Dame Olga, making Hattie and Olive Ella's stepsisters. There is some small justice in that Lucinda shows up at their wedding as well and gives another awful gift, although I have some difficulty wrapping my head around why it's so awful. Ella's father and stepmother have a mutual marriage of convenience, and Lucinda makes it so they will always love each other, which they find distasteful and generally choose to do from as far away as possible. Thus Ella's father is not around to protect her from her stepfamily's abuses (being treated as a servant, just like in the original Cinderella story), as he is always away on business trips. When Char tries to visit before leaving to spend a year in a neighboring kingdom, Hattie commands Ella not to go down to see him. Ella writes Char and asks him to write back to her by sending letters through Mandy, so Hattie is unaware of the correspondence. Over the next six months, their friendship deepens. Eventually Char reveals that he is in love with Ella and wants her to marry him. At first she is delighted, but when she realizes what a danger she would be to the prince if she married him, she decides she can't let it happen. She writers another letter, rejecting him and breaking his heart and hers.

The next months pass miserably, and Ella hears of Prince Char's return and a series of three balls the king will be holding to welcome him home. Ella wants to see the prince again, although she intends not to speak to him and to wear a mask so she won't be recognized. She isn't able to avoid him though, and when introduced to him she gives a false name. Her natural wit and charm win him over quickly, even though he isn't aware that it's Ella at first. By the third night of balls, while Ella is dancing with Char, Hattie pulls off her mask and reveals her. Ella runs from the palace and reaches home, telling Mandy what happened. They prepare to run away, but the prince arrives and demands to see her. He doesn't understand why she lied to him, but he still loves her and asks her to marry him—only he phrases it as a command, "Marry me." Certain that marrying the prince would eventually lead to someone using her to hurt him, she refuses, and manages to use her own strength of will to break the curse. Once she realizes what's happened, she's able to explain everything to Char, and agrees to marry him.

So how is this story different from the movie, and from the original Cinderella story? First of all, and probably most importantly, Ella Enchanted the movie was almost a parody of itself. It mocked the world of fairy tales by combining it with the real world. Char has a fan club of screaming girls wearing dresses painted with hearts (like t-shirts), girls visit the mall and ride on escalators moved by hand-turned wheels, there are yellow taxi carriages, Ella attends the local community college and takes a debate class, etc. The movie is also a musical, with a variety of songs from the 70s and 80s such as "Walkin' on Sunshine," "Somebody to Love," and "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart." Although the tone seems a little strange if you've read the book first, the songs really are a lot of fun.

The many nonhuman races are in the film, but they have somewhat different attitudes and cultures than in the book, and they seem to be much more obvious parodies of fairy tale stereotypes. For example, the elf Slannen (now a major character who accompanies Ella on her journey to find Lucinda) is much sillier than the dignified village head and tradesman from the book. He's a very comic character, and much is made of his height (or lack thereof), his lack of interest in music, and his aspirations to be a lawyer. In this version of the story, Char's father was killed when he was a boy and he has been raised by his melodramatically evil Uncle Edgar, who has passed laws that prevent elves from any profession not having to do with singing, dancing, and other sorts of entertainment. The elves we meet look something like a combination between leprechauns and Broadway follies dancers, and most of them sing constantly and won't shut up. Giants are friendly and fun-loving, like in the book, but they don't have quite the same attitude toward strangers (giants in the book fall all over themselves with delight whenever a stranger comes to visit). They are seen as fairly forgiving and welcoming, however, and they love to party. Their dress and behavior seem to suggest kind of a gypsy feel. It's hard to tell though, the costumes seem to have elements of hippie, bohemian, pirate, nightclub, and 70s mod influences as well, and probably more. The costumer designer for the film said they tried to create the styles from scratch, not attempting to base them on any one thing in particular, and it shows.

Ogres are similar to the book in that they eat people, but for some reason they were at peace with humans a generation ago. They also don't have the ability to convince humans to do anything they want. Instead they're rather bumbling and goofy, as with most other creatures in the movie. Fairies all seem to behave much the same way as Lucinda—they were pink and tall, princess hats with flowing gauze, they get drunk at parties, they live in retirement homes for fairies, and they fly everywhere. Lucinda is by no means the only fairy to do big magic, and the only reason Mandy doesn't is because she's not a very good fairy and she screws things up easily. She's not the calm, self-assured grandmotherly figure that she is in the book; instead she's a bit silly and given to clumsy magical mistakes, and she's quite young, played by Minnie Driver. I'm not so sure this was a good choice, alongside Ella's mother, because her mother looks much older than I would have expected, and not nearly as playful as the character is in the book. It's as if Mandy and Ella's mother had their roles reversed.

In the novel, Mandy gives Ella a magical book before she leaves for finishing school. It shows letters and journal entries by various people Ella knows, all sorts of stories, pictures, and maps, and it's mostly there to keep her entertained, although it provides useful information, too. The contents of the book constantly change. In the movie, the book is actually a character, Benny, Mandy's boyfriend whom she accidentally turned into a book due to a spell gone awry. The book remains blank until someone asks him to show something specific. He can show pictures of people but not tell where they are, which is how Ella gets the clues to find Lucinda. It's a cute idea, but it also serves to reinforce Mandy's reputation as a clumsy fairy who is bad at magic, at least in the movie.

Prince Char is a little more naive and full of himself at the beginning of the story. He is laid back and not all that interested in responsibility or princely duties, the opposite of his book counterpart—but then again, this likely results from the change in father figures. In the film he is raised by his evil uncle, who has done his best to keep the prince from having any interest in politics or any real preparation to be king, as he wishes to keep all the power for himself. Edgar himself is an entirely new character, and a laughably silly one. He has a dark goatee and an evil smirk that seem to scream that he is the villain, not to mention a talking snake for a sidekick. It's all very silly, but he's played by Carey Elwes, who takes the character over the top in an amusing way and chews the scenery so hard you just know he's having the time of his life. The character fits the tone of the movie and provides some needed tension. After all, in the book it's not hard to explain the threat Ella poses because of her curse, but it doesn't make as much sense onscreen without showing it explicitly, by having a villain command her to kill the prince. In the book, the only real villain is Hattie, and potentially Ella's father, who seem to conspire to ruin Ella's life.

Dame Olga acts very similarly to her character in the book, as do Hattie and Olive (although Olive is much more giggly than I would have expected). Both are incredibly over the top, but it works and is kind of funny. Ella's father is a fairly nice man who actually has some kind of relationship with his daughter, and if anything he seems a little absent-minded and hands-off about his parenting. Ella's best friend, Areida, has a similar role in book and movie, although in the movie they'd been friends since childhood. She's portrayed by a dark-skinned young woman, which adds an element of racism to the other girls' treatment of her. Ella and Areida are activists, often leading rallies and protests on behalf of nonhuman races, who are unfairly oppressed by Edgar.

Ella herself seems very different to me in the movie, possibly because she is so much older. In the book she was about fifteen or sixteen for most of the story, but here she is played by Anne Hathaway and is in college. She has a very modern attitude to fit with the modern (sort of) setting. She doesn't show the same subtlety of wit as Ella in the book, but she's still strong-willed and energetic. If anything, the film version has more of a temper and is more confrontational, given her activism, skills at debate, and contemptuous attitude towards Prince Char when she first meets him. This is another difference—Char is quite full of himself and yet fascinated that there is a girl who doesn't immediately fall for his charms, and Ella thinks of him as a stuck-up airhead with no real plan for his future rule. Ella is justified, of course, and it's her influence that changes that about him, whereas in the book, she had a positive influence on him but in quite the opposite direction, convincing him to let loose a bit and enjoy his youth, not just spending all his time on princely duties. (The king and queen in the book are actually very much in approval of this change.)

At first glance, the book and the movie really do seem totally different, largely because of the way characters have become caricatures and the setting has been a parody and a mish-mash of modern and fantasy worlds. Still, the most essential elements of the story do remain, and Ella is eventually the one responsible for her own fate and saving herself from the curse. In that respect, both versions are a good example of the "Postmodern Princess". Ella isn't like other girls her age, who care more about giggling at young men and flaunting fashionable clothing and jewelry. The main difference, I'd say, is that the movie makes everything much more explicit and over the top, and a lot of the subtlety is gone. That's not entirely surprising, given the differences between book and movie target audiences and the ways in which a medium defines the story it is telling. The movie Ella Enchanted has a "fluffy" quality to it that actually makes it quite entertaining—kind of like eating popcorn or cotton candy. Since it's a musical, it's fun to sing along or just listen, even if you've seen it a number of times before. In fact, it's one of my collection of movies that I like to put on to play while I work on sewing or other projects, since I know the story well, it doesn't take a lot of concentration, but it provides some entertainment and something to occupy those parts of my mind not absorbed in measuring fabric and getting seams straight.

Overall, if pressed, I'd say I prefer the book—largely because I read it first, and it does have that element of subtlety that gives it a little more depth, especially as a children's book. The movie is great fun, and it's certainly a loving parody, but it does seem to spend a bit too much time laughing at itself and at the entire concept of a fairy tale. I have a great fondness for fairy tales and fantasy, and I prefer to take them at face value when I can. Still, I can see how the movie adaptation broadened the story's appeal for a wider audience. Gail Carson Levine herself says that the book and the movie are two entirely different creative works, and she believes they should be taken on their own merits, with comparing them with each other too much.

So what do these two versions of the story have in common with the Cinderella story, aside from the young woman who rises above her stepfamily's cruelty to marry the prince? That's a fun little Easter egg hunt, and the glass slippers, pumpkin carriage, and stroke of midnight elements all play a role in both stories, though in different ways in each one. Try checking out both the book and the movie of Ella Enchanted and see what you can find!