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(Trailer can be downloaded as QT and MPG)

When Patrick Dempsey’s Robert stumbles upon Amy Adams’ lost fairytale princess Giselle soon after she has fallen from her fairytale world of Andalasia into his real world of New York City, he tells her, “It’s like you escaped from a Hallmark card or something.”

And honestly, I can’t think of better way to describe the meeting of fairytale and reality that Disney’s newest fairytale adventure Enchanted brings to life. In fact, if I were to sum up the whole movie in just a few words, it would be an entire Hallmark store full of cards, spread across Manhattan, and filled with enough Disney endorsements to pay the bills for a lifetime. And as a person who keeps a box of cards I’ve been given close enough for whenever I need an extra smile, I mean that in the best way possible.

From its opening can of animated Disney optimism to its real world happy ending, every scene in Enchanted is very much like one of those cards that fills my box. Some are funny and inventive, some are cheesy and stereotypical, some are touching, some are empowering, and in the end, they all come together to form a collection of words, images, characters, and moments that push us to celebrate who we are, the connections that we share, and the simple truths of love and joy that surround us each and every day.

Amy Adams

As the movie opens, we stumble into the land of sugary-sweet one liners, aka the classic Disney fairytale. True love is just around the corner. Happily ever after is just one step further. And life is so beautiful, you can’t help but sing about it all the time. But then, the cartoon fairytale shatters. Its simple messages of blind hope fall into the complex realities of actual life. And the fairytale world is faced with the challenge of keeping love and happily ever after alive in the real world.

The first character to fall from fairytale Andalasia into real world Manhattan is soon-to-be Princess Giselle. Played by the extraordinarily talented Amy Adams (video Interview), Giselle is a portrait of innocence and joy in their purest forms. And as such, she is the centerpiece of the movie’s quest to both poke fun at the ridiculousness of so much of its own history and to bring that same history into modernity and prove that its core still holds true.

Running around New York City in a wedding dress the size of my first dorm room, breaking into song in the middle of intersections, and knocking on the doors of a billboard castles, Giselle’s naiveté and happiness is comically out of place the moment she enters the real world (video clip). When she summons cockroaches and rats to join in her “Happy Cleaning” song and dance, her notion of simple joy and effortless harmony is both hilariously bizarre and charmingly appealing. And as the movie goes on, she continues to wander along that line of out-of-place, yet somehow in touch with a truth that could be there should we choose to believe in it.

If Giselle were a greeting card, she would be colorful, flowery, and found somewhere in the Birthday, Thinking of You, or For Someone Special sections. Whether life is good, bad, or ugly, she will be there ready to tell you of the joy that surrounds you. And as her full scale song and dance number in Central Park shows, her joyful perspective is one that it seems everyone is just waiting to join in on (video: Singing in the Park)

As the story continues, Giselle is joined by other characters from both the real and fairytale worlds. The unsuspecting man to find Giselle wandering the streets of Manhattan, divorce lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey) is very much the call to realism in the whole story. He is the person who knows why there are greeting cards for Divorce, Sympathy, Encouragement, and I’m Sorry. And alongside Giselle, he is the check for her optimism and the voice that challenges her to see that believing in true love and happily ever after in the real world isn’t as easy as it is in hers.

Also along for the journey of converting true love and happily ever after into a modernly understandable form are the egotistical Prince Edward (James Marsden), Pip the pantomiming squirrel, and the wicked Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon).

SUSAN SARANDON (left), JAMES MARSDEN (right) -Photo Credit: BARRY WETCHER

With Edward, we get the Humor and “hot guy” cards. When it comes to great one-liners that will make audiences laugh time and time again, Edward dominates the field. But as the token “hot guy,” aka Prince Charming, his comical existence also reminds us that our notions of ideals aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be.

Hands down, Pip takes the award for cutest character. He is the Cartoon or animal card, every child’s favorite, and mostly likely to make us realize how simple the joys that bring a smile to our faces can be.

And through Queen Narissa, the story steers into the realm of Graduation, Congratulations, Good Luck, and You Go Girl types of cards. She may be the wickedly cool icon of most of Enchanted’s advertisements, but as her evildoing pushes the story and its characters to a climax, it is the other characters, their growth, and their transformations which shine the brightest in the end.

From open to close, Enchanted, like every one of my favorite greeting cards, is a movie that will make you smile. At times it can get a bit cheesy, but mostly it is just fun, funny, and inspiring. Adams and Marsden shine as they give their over-the-top fairy tale characters their all. Alan Menken and Steven Schwartz’s musical numbers (video interview) draw you in and continue playing in your head for days afterward. With easily over 100 references to Disney history made through names, voices, background music, shots, and icons placed throughout the entire movie, the movie becomes a fun and affectionate tribute to everything Disney. And with a great story for kids on one level and additional complexity for adults on another, Enchanted is an entertaining and engaging ride for all ages with a message that will stick with you long after you leave the theater.

Patrick Dempsey and Amy Adams

So often this world can make us feel like true love and happily ever after and real life and constantly ever complicated could never exist together. But through the magical tale inside Enchanted, its story shows us that perhaps the truest love and happiness there could ever be is one that chooses to come down and meet us in the middle of our messiness. We see that any love and happiness worth anything must do just that. And we are challenged by the reality that all we may need to do to allow that kind of love and happiness into our lives is to reach out in faith and take hold of its extended hand.