About a week ago now, my state of Maryland saw its first snowfall of the winter. In the beginning, it felt like quarantine all over again, even though I don't leave the house much at all these days, the snow took away the possibility of even getting out for essentials.
But believe it or not, the moment I stepped outside that first snowy morning and saw all of those little, delicate snowflakes flowing down from the sky, I couldn't help but feel a sense of calm, and this snowfall suddenly turned into a much needed mental refresh for me.
Soon I ended up back in my house with a cup of hot chocolate, ready to use this storm as an opportunity to take it easy and watch something new so I turned to the film "Godmothered" on DisneyPlus which had just come out earlier this month, and after watching it on two separate occasions, I have a few thoughts on it that I would like to share with you.
An inexperienced fairy godmother-in-training named Eleanor (Jillian Bell) sets out to find Mackenzie, (Isla Fisher) a troubled 10-year-old girl, after discovering her misplaced letter in which she requested the help of a fairy godmother. Soon Eleanor tracks the young girl down and is shocked to find that Mackenzie is now a 40-year-old single mother with two girls of her own, and no longer believes in the idea of living happily ever after.
Godmothered isn't your typical fairytale. Instead of the story being focused solely on finding Mackenzie her prince charming, the film flips the script and redefines what it actually means to live happily ever after and how our true loves can come in various different forms.
At the beginning of this movie, you are lead to believe that they are heading in the same old direction as most of these stories do, but instead, it managed to do a decent job of putting a creative twist on outdated fairytale concepts, without sucking too much of the magic out of it.
Eleanor was a fun character for this movie, I liked the fish out of water storytelling, and watching her reactions to what she encounters out in the world during her experience with Mackenzie made for some fun moments, and that's thanks to Jillian Bell, who portrayed this character with such a delightfully playful personality and charming innocence.
As much as I wanted Godmothered to become a welcomed addition to my lineup of favorite Christmas films, unfortunately, there were several issues that I personally had with this movie, starting with the fact that for a story that was centered completely around the idea of magic, magic was what I found the film to be lacking in the most.
The concept sounds great in theory, the idea of pulling an ambitious, soon-to-be fairy godmother out of her fairytale environment and placing her into our world is reminiscent of popular films such as Elf and Enchanted but where those two had found success, is where Godmothered failed, with its underwhelming script.
Now, when I tell you that I thought it was lacking in the magic department, I don't mean that Eleanor didn't do enough waving of her wand for my liking, or that she neglected to show off some of her fairy godmothering skills, it's that everything in this movie was just completely and utterly forgettable, there was nothing special enough to have left a lasting impression on me.
One of my biggest complaints is that Isla Fisher's Mackenzie Walsh felt very one dimensional, and it seemed clear that writers didn't put that same amount of thought and effort into crafting this character that they put into Eleanor and as a result, she came off as nothing more than a prop to progress Eleanor's story, and I wasn't able to form a connection with her.
The first time I watched Godmothered was while I was doing a little bit of Christmas themed crafting and I had it on in the background for something to listen to. I hadn't been paying as much attention as I could have, so I decided to watch it once more, but during both of those viewings, I thought the same thing, this film is much too long for the story it's trying to tell.
Truth be told the entire thing could have been wrapped up nicely within an hour but instead, the story was long and drawn out in order to fit its almost two-hour runtime and for the most part, it was filled with a whole lot of nothing.
And what I may have despised the most about this movie was the lack of creativity when it came to the subplot of Mackenzie's oldest daughter. Of course, this is a spoiler-free review, and I'll just say that the direction they went in with her character has been overdone when it comes to Disney, and it's frustrating to see them create the same characters with the same talents and desires, it gets old and the company has to come up with something new.
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