Ella Enchanted: A Disgruntled Fan's Comparison of Book and Movie

Ella Enchanted: A Disgruntled Fan's Comparison of Book and Movie

Disclaimer: there may be some spoilers in this post. Nothing book-ruining, though.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine is one of my favorite books, and it has been since I first read it years ago. Though likely intended for younger readers, the book still provides a quick, light, and fluffy read for today’s Fallon. This ageless quality is brought about by the elegant simplicity of the book and a twist on the well-known story of Cinderella. The plot is simple, but Levine maintains vivid descriptions throughout the book that bring the story to life for any reader. Unfortunately, the more serious nature of the book is lost in the movie, which became goofy and ridiculous in its attempts to hone in on a young target demographic with modern references, language, and tropes.

In the book, Ella of Frell is blessed at birth with the “gift” of obedience. The misguided fairy Lucinda, who conjured Ella’s plight, refuses to remove it. Ella must immediately obey any command given to her. Any attempt to resist results in an onslaught of unpleasant symptoms. Consequently, Ella grows to despise and cleverly evade unwanted commands thrown her way. When Ella’s mother dies, her life is shoved off of its trajectory. She meets the lighthearted and chivalrous Prince Charmont (aka Char) at the funeral, while her father meets the wealthy and unpleasant Dame Olga, her future stepmother. Soon after, Ella is sent off to finishing school with Dame Olga’s daughters, Hattie and Olive. Hattie, vain and power-hungry as she is, takes it upon herself to make Ella’s time at school into a complete nightmare. As the teachers build Ella’s pile of instructive orders and Hattie pushes her around, she grows restless. Ella has no choice but to flee the school to find Lucinda and break the curse. The rest of the book narrates her quest and subsequent correspondence with Char, culminating with a slight variation on the Cinderella story we all know and love.

One of the issues I have with the film is the timeline; it deviates greatly from the book. The curse is one of the few plot points that unites the two stories. The movie completely misses some of the most important events; finishing school, the mother’s funeral, Ella’s father’s wedding, and every letter Ella and Char exchange during the prince’s diplomatic trip. The few significant scenes that did make it into the movie were out of order and skewed by the overarching goofiness of the film. Further, much of the film is composed of alternative plot material. For example, the movie features Char’s evil uncle and his talking snake, who try to take over the kingdom. There is certainly no evil uncle nor a talking snake in the book, so why anyone thought this needed to be in the movie is beyond me. Levine herself protested this addition. Her input was sadly ignored (https://gailcarsonlevine.com/blog/2009/09/09/ella-enchanted-movie/). I particularly missed Ella and Char’s letters. They really aid in shifting Ella and Char’s friendship into a romance, and help to bring out their respective characters. They’re a major “aw-that’s-so-cuuuuute!” piece of the story. Their absence, perhaps in favor of the target demographic, is gut-wrenchingly disappointing.

Further, the overall mood of the film separates from the book. The movie is filled with modern twists, dialect, and music. These additions completely ruin the classic fairytale style of Frell. First off, the costumes leave much to be desired as none of the dresses are sufficiently poofy for my taste and Lucinda appears wearing a sparkly pink crop tank top and matching skirt with pigtails. Pigtails. The costumes are just too “modern” to invoke that mystical fairytale vibe. Further, the dialogue… Well, first off, accents are all over the place. Ella’s is American, Char’s and Hattie’s are vaguely British, and I really wish they would’ve just chosen one and stuck with it because the differences are really jarring and it ruins any shot this movie has at a cohesive sound. Second, the sentence structure, word choice, and conversation flow of the film are very cringe-worthy and perfectly resonate early 2000s and I don’t like it. Part of the appeal of the book was the mundane, fantastical mood that all the bright colors and firey characters completely destroy. I suspect that the minds behind the film identified the target audience as 10-year-olds, and felt they needed to make it really appealing to that demographic. Hence, they over-simplified, modernized, and glittered things in hopes of luring those unsuspecting 4th graders to the theater. In doing so, they completely ruined their chances of attracting anyone outside of that very specific “girly-girl” group.

Next, the character of Ella is all wrong in the movie. First, Anne Hathaway, who plays Ella, is just too tall for the role. Ella is, in the book, small for her age, which visually reinforces her vulnerability and highlights her stupendous resilience. This would not be as atrocious a misstep if the film has not also lost Ella’s character. In the book, though she is reluctant to follow orders, and often downright stubborn, she is not disrespectful or snappish, as she is in the movie. For example, when Ella first meets Char in the book, she does not immediately insult him, as she does in the film. She, instead, respectfully and properly greets him. With assistance from her wacky sense of humor, Ella becomes fast friends with the prince. In the film, Ella is nasty and sarcastic with Char, simply because she disagrees with his uncle’s handling of the kingdom. Further, she is quick to attack Hattie’s views in a debate in class (also not mentioned in the book). I think that the film was going for an inspiring female protagonist who maintains her own ideas despite adversity and doesn’t need some boy to rescue her. Instead, Ella came off as snobbish and over-critical. I could launch into complaints about other characters, but I’ll spare you.

I really disliked the way the curse was portrayed, but I can’t explain that without spoiling the book and the film. I’ll just say that the book had a much subtler approach to the curse: Ella was compelled to obey and punished for not obeying. The film represented the curse as a shimmery sound and an abrupt motion, but failed to capture the internal struggle which likely could have been portrayed if Ella had attempted to disobey as frequently in the film as in the book.

In hindsight, I think my utter disdain for this movie comes down to the very specific vision I constructed while reading the book. The movie does not align at all with the visuals and characters I imagined, and I found that to be quite a shock. Not only that, but the movie is a bit ridiculous in general, which I suppose you could call a “creative deviation” or “style choice” or “artistic liberty.” Personally, I call it an affront to the fantastic story. Much of the value of the novel was lost in the translation from book to film, apparently to please a younger audience. Though Gail Carson Levine disagrees with my review (she liked the film, she says in this blog post), I stand by my disappointment in what I expected to be a riveting and accurate adaptation of my beloved story.

-- Fallon