Godmothered
Am I becoming a softie in my old age? The night my wife and I watched “Godmothered,” we also watched Disney+’s “Black Beauty” adaptation, and both of them tugged, successfully, at the heartstrings. “Black Beauty” did it more, but I think Sharon Maguire’s fantasy-comedy was the one that’ll last longer, because of what it’s doing, and how it’s doing it. I almost wish this was a theatrical release, in a normal movie year, because I think it would be a sleeper for Disney; it’ll do just fine on Disney+, though.
If you’ve been paying attention for the past decade or so, Disney has been low-key tweaking their “princess” formula for a new generation. I think “Enchanted” might have been their last, true, old-school, original “Disney princess” movie, and it was also one that looked forward in the genre in doing so. When you look at “Tangled” and “Brave” and the “Frozen” movies and “Moana,” each one is going against the standard operating procedure in their own way, sometimes even when they still find that obligatory “happily ever after.” I wonder whether “Godmothered” is their ultimate final statement on the matter; I’m sure they’ll still do “princess movies,” but I doubt we’ll ever see a major one- sans live-action remakes of animated ones- that plays by the old rules ever again. It would make sense, because “Godmothered” is a nice companion piece to “Enchanted” in a lot of ways, and not just because both star redheads who have a tendency to get confused for one another.
In “Godmothered,” the main character is Eleanor (Jillian Bell), who’s been studying to be a fairy godmother in the magical world of Mother Land for a number of years. But she just hasn’t been able to get the hang of it, and it feels like she’s stuck on the basics, much to the frustration of the head godmother, Moira (the great Jane Curtin). But being a fairy godmother is not the job it used to be, not in a world that largely doesn’t believe in magic anymore, and it’s only a matter of time before they transfer to being tooth fairies, something that never really goes out of style. Eleanor wants to be a godmother, though, and while in the filing room, she finds a letter to one from a Mackenzie, who is hoping for that “happily ever after.” Eleanor sees this as her chance, and so she gets her things, and some help, and heads to the modern world. What she doesn’t expect is to find Mackenzie as a stressed producer (Isla Fisher) at a Boston local TV station with two kids. This is going to be a lot harder than Eleanor thought.
The screenplay by Kari Granlund and Melissa Stack plays to fairy tale conventions in some very conventional ways, as well as some unexpectedly funny ways (Gary the raccoon is a scene-stealer). What keeps it from being truly insufferable, at least to me, is Maguire’s direction, which focuses- as she did in the first “Bridget Jones’s Diary” movie- on the personality of her stars, and making sure Eleanor and Mackenzie come off as genuine characters, as well as broad enough characters to deliver in comedic moments (something Bell and Fisher succeed at). As she showed with that unconventional rom-com, Maguire does plenty to conform to the formula, while also giving it some energy to be a bit more mature than the formula usually is capable of. Part of why that works here is that the fundamental premise of the script is to modernize our idea of what “happily ever after” means. It doesn’t just mean finding Prince Charming, but it’s about leaning in to what makes you happiest. Heck, even this film avoids that convention of Prince Charming after practically setting it up for the entire film- that doesn’t mean the characters won’t get it after the credits roll; it just means that, for this movie, that’s not the goal. And that’s perfectly fine.
I want to conclude by saying, it’s nice to see Isla Fisher get a lead role for a change, even if it’s a co-lead role with Bell. It’s always nice to see her in key supporting roles in films like “Nocturnal Animals” (which plays completely on her physical similarities to Amy Adams), “Now You See Me” and “The Lookout,” but the best roles she’s had show her as a more than capable lead, and “Godmothered” takes full advantage of that. With Bell as the main focus of the story as Eleanor, she doesn’t quite get the show-stopping moments “Enchanted” gave Adams, but she still gets to have some fun in her by-play with the rest of the cast, and she still shows some emotion when opposite Mackenzie’s kids, played by Jillian Shea Spaeder and Willa Skye. It’s nice to see her have her moment in the spotlight, in a movie that succeeds as being a happy bright spot in a weird year overall.
