Ella Enchanted
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Ella Enchanted is an Newbery Honor book written by Gail Carson Levine and published in 1997. It is also the title of the American movie based on the novel and released April 9, 2004 directed by Tommy O'Haver and starring Anne Hathaway and Hugh Dancy. The story is a contemporary retelling of Cinderella featuring various mythical creatures (including elves, ogres, dwarves and giants).
Plot outline (book)
At the moment of Eleanor (Ella) of Frell's birth, she was unfortunately bestowed a "gift" by a fairy named Lucinda. Despite the objections from her mother and fairy godmother/family's cook (Mandy), Lucinda cursed Ella with the "gift" of obedience. From that day forward, Ella was to obey any direct order given to her by anybody, no matter what it was (orders ranging from hopping on one foot all day to chopping off her own head). Ella, however, stays lighthearted by making a game out of her curse and finding loopholes around orders. For example, if Mandy orders her to hold a bowl of cake batter, Ella would move her feet and run around the kitchen, having Mandy chase after her until she gave her another order or request.
At her mother's funeral, Ella meets Prince Charmont a.k.a. Char, in the graveyard next to a large willow tree. The two have a long conversation full of laughs and wit until Ella's father takes her home. When they return home after the funeral, Ella meets Dame Olga and her daughters, Hattie and Olive, whom she discovers have bad attitudes, and are being sent to finishing school. After the three leave, Ella's father forces her to go to finishing school because he doesn't want his daughter to grow up being a clumsy cook's helper. The night before she is sent away, Mandy gives her a magical fairy book that can show her children's stories, journal entries and letters from friends and family, as well as maps and other things. She also gives her her mother's necklace.
The day she is sent to finishing school, she first goes on a small trip with Prince Char, who shows her all of her favorite places and promises to bring her a centaur. Ella gets in a carriage with Hattie and Olive, who automatically begin to take advantage of the curse, making her give up the necklace as well as her money. When they arrive at finishing school, Ella befriends an Ayorthian girl named Areida and the two are very close until Hattie forces Ella to end her friendship with an order. Ella soon learns of the Giant's wedding from her magic book and that both her father and Lucinda may attend. Eager to be free from the curse, she flees from finishing school in the night and tries to make her way to the Giant's wedding.
In the process, she meets the elves who give her a gift (a beautiful Agulen sculpture of a howling wolf) and a horse. After she leaves the elves, she's kidnapped by ogres who eat her horse and try to eat her. However, after observing the Ogrese language overnight, she hypnotizes them and is soon saved by Char and his knights. They bind the ogres and take them in, and Char lets one of his knights take her to the wedding. Ella meets Lucinda and begs her to remove the curse, while at the same time hoping Lucinda isn't offended and won't turn her into a squirrel. Lucinda refuses and orders her to be happy with her obedience, with serious aftereffects.
She meets her father and they return home, while learning that he is now a ruined man for selling an item that did not belong to him. In order to keep his family from being thrown into the streets, he plans to marry Ella off. At first Ella is happy, as she is ordered to be, and even meets one of her suitors at dinner. However, an order from Mandy telling her to feel however she feels about her curse makes her change her mind rather drastically. Her father refuses to marry Ella off, and instead decides to marry Dame Olga. Ella's worst fears unravel as Hattie and Olive are now her sisters.
At the wedding, she meets with Prince Char again, and they share a romantic evening together. They find glass slippers in a garden and Ella wears them as they dance together. It would be the last time they would see each other for some time, for he would have to leave for Ayortha for one year, but they promise to keep in touch through letters. Lucinda arrives at the wedding and bestows a curse on the married couple, granting them eternal love. Any chance of Ella's father leaving Dame Olga has now been ruined. Instantly, Ella is turned into a slave in her own house, working with the servants and abiding by Hattie and Olive's ridiculous orders, while at the same time having fun slipping sleeping herbs into Dame Olga's supper.
Ella receives a letter from Char, where he pours out his heart to her and in the end, proposes to her. At first she is happy, but soon realizes that marrying Char would make things much worse. Her stepsisters would take advantage of her completely, especially since she is queen, and if she was ever captured by an enemy of Frell, she could be forced to kill Char or reveal any secrets. Ella sends a fraud letter to him saying that she has run away with another man and will be "smiling at her jewels and laughing at the world." A journal entry in her fairy book shows a picture of Char burning her letters as well as a page from his journal stating how he despises her. It breaks Ella's heart, but she is happy that he is safe.
Mandy, fed up with Ella's torment, challenges Lucinda to a small game. She tells her to spend six months as a squirrel and six months cursed to be obedient, just to get a taste of what her "gifted ones" go through for their entire lives. When the year is up, Lucinda has learned her lesson, and in return decides to help Ella. Char holds a royal ball that lasts for three nights. Lucinda uses her magic to turn mice and pumpkins into horses and a coach, she dresses Ella in finery (a beautiful dress, jewelry and a mask) and Ella, now under the alias Lela, can go to the ball and see Char again.
On the third night of the ball, when she's dancing with Char, Hattie snatches off her mask. Ella runs away from Char, who is in complete and utter shock, and runs to the manor. Ella and Mandy plan to run away and make their work as cooks, but Char and his soldiers come to their house before they leave. Ella puts on servants clothes and dirties her face, in hopes that Char will not recognize her. But, of course, he does. Ella tries on the glass slippers from her father's wedding, and they fit her perfectly. Char unintentionally orders Ella to tell him honestly if she loves him or not, which she says she does, and happily he "orders" her to marry him. Ella realizes that she has put him in danger, and in the end, her love overpowers the curse and the spell is broken.
In the end, Olive marries a count only for food and money, Dame Olga is left still in eternal love, and Hattie never marries; Ella and Char live happliy ever after.
Plot outline (movie)
Shortly after her birth, Ella (Hathaway) is granted the "gift" of obedience by a fairy named Lucinda (Vivica A. Fox). She now is forced to obey anything and everything anybody tells her to do. Several years later, Ella's mother passes away, and she is left with her father who, in need of money, remarries a wealthy socialite. His snobbish new wife and her two spoiled daughters treat Ella poorly. The oldest daughter soon figures out Ella's "gift" and takes advantage of it. Ella cannot bear to live under the obedience spell any longer and sets out to find Lucinda in hopes of getting her to remove the spell. (In the book, Ella's father sends her to finishing school, which was cut out of the movie entirely and replaced with a scene at an anachronistic community college in the beginning of the story.)
Ella soon runs into trouble with a group of ogres but is rescued by Prince Charmont (Dancy), the heir to the kingdom of Frell. Ella and the Prince go to his palace so Ella may search the Hall of Records for Lucinda and the Prince may attend his coronation. (This middle section is very different from the book, in which Ella finds Lucinda quite unintentionally at a Giant wedding she attends after running away from finishing school, and Prince Char's father is alive and well and has no brother out to steal the throne.) On the trip back, Ella and Prince Charmont fall in love.
At the palace, Ella's "gift" is soon brought to the attention of Sir Edgar (a character who does not exist in the book, played by Cary Elwes in the movie), the Prince's uncle and the regent of Frell until Char's coronation, by Ella's stepsisters. Edgar assumed the throne after the death of the Prince's father, whom Edgar had secretly killed. He does not wish to relinquish the throne to Prince Charmont, so he orders Ella to stab the Prince when they are alone and also orders her not to tell anyone of his plan. With no help from Lucinda (who learns the folly of her ways in the book, but not in the movie), Ella must figure out a way out of her curse and to save the Prince from his uncle's treachery.
This is extremely difficult for Ella, obedience having plagued her since a child and staying with her, through the stages of early adult-hood. Ella is then faced with the fact that she has to commit a terrible sin, and upon the one she loves. The only way for her to escape and save Char is to somehow escape from the curse.
From here, how is Ella to escape? Many plans ensue, but unfortunately are spoiled by Ella's godmother Lucinda. This does not help Ella's hopes not to kill her one true love, but she still hopes.
but in the end, which will prevail? the curse or her love for Char?
Box office
Ella Enchanted cost $35 million to make, but only grossed $22.9 million in theaters. DVD sales, however, helped the bottom line.Music
External links
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