Ella Enchanted (2004)

Ella Enchanted, THE MOVIE


Warning: I am stepping upon my soap box!

This movie brings me back to my childhood, I say that as if I am an eighty year old! I remember going to this movie with my mom and a neighborhood friend. It was one of the last weeks the movie would be shown in any show houses in my home town. Thus the theater was deserted, except for my party of three. I remember that during the musical parts of this movie my friend and I danced and sang along in the sticky aisle of the theater. I can just imagine me singing the song RESPECT along with the movie! :D It soon became one of my favorite movies. Now my eyes have been opened by reading the book that the bejeweled movie was supposedly "based" on. I am quite puzzled now about the movie I once upon a time adored.



So I read the book, it changed my view. I could not believed how far the movie strayed for Mrs. Levine's masterpiece of a story. So I watched the movie, then called my friend who had also read the book. I released all my feelings of the absurd changes the movie had made to my beloved book. She had only seen a scratch of the movie. I needed her to understand my feelings so we went to rent the movie. Unfortunately all the movie rentals were closing, so I ended up buying the movie. It turned out to be a great move, buying the movie, for I put much research and effort into comparing the movie and book. I reread the book and watched the movie countless times. I am still perplexed with the movie and why they thought it was a grand idea to change it so much from the storyline of the book.



So, after me painting the background for you, I shall give my opinion, my comparison, and my review. I believe that the movie is splendid in showing another story of Cinderella, quite different even from the book it was based on. Yet, I disagree on they way they presented the story written by Gail Carson Levine! Actually, I do not believe the movie resembles the amazing book. I can understand why they changed it so, they probably wanted it to fit a wider audience, yet in doing so they lost the charm and magic the book gave to its fellow readers. They cut out many of the parts that made the book delightful and so consist to the story of Cinderella, which made it one of my all time favorite books. Again I congratulate Mrs. Levine in her splendid way of giving me a deeper, beautiful, touching, and imaginative fantasy that became part of my life. The movie barely follows the book at all. Instead of a wonderful fairytale full of adventure, love, and finding your true self the movie presents a comedy, that lost much of the wonderful delight of the book. Then strayed into a whole different feeling and story. So in all the movie lost many of the details of the book, that I loved and now miss and added many things that were unnecessary and unwanted by me. Do not get me wrong. I still quite enjoy the movie, yet the book overshadows the movie in a great manner. So, as if you could not decipher this before, I wish the movie could have been more thoughtful in following the already perfect book. Instead they produced a movie, of which had little connection with the book I loved.

One of the most upsetting changes is the addition of the evil uncle king. He did not exist in the book at all. I feel that a villain is unneeded and the story's purest power is Ella's focused concentration to overcome the trail of her curse, no cliche evil king uncle dude!

SO TO SUM THINGS UP. While I did enjoy the movie, since reading the book, I have become bias. I felt as if the movie took the general idea of the book and ran off with it. Making it into something they thought would sell. In doing so I believe, they lost much of the splendor of which I found in the book. To me the book and movie are two whole different stories. The movie added, in my opinion, unneeded characters and elements. They really strayed from the book! The book and movie seemed night and day to me. So remember never judge a book by the movie. For upon reading the delightful book, you shall find a whole other rendition.



Well that's my soap box speech. I hope it can be comprehended, sometime I struggle making my thoughts clear and in a manner I would have them stated.





Movie came out in 2004