Film / Disenchanted (2022)

Nothing stays enchanted forever.

"In Andalasia the hardest part is finding your happily ever after. This world is very different."

— Giselle

Disenchanted is a 2022 fantasy film and the sequel to 2007's Enchanted, directed by Adam Shankman.

Ten years after the events of the first film, Giselle (Amy Adams), Robert (Patrick Dempsey), and their daughter Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) leave their New York City home for a fixer-upper in the suburb of Monroeville. However, Giselle has difficulty adjusting to suburbia and butts heads with her snobby new neighbor Malvina Monroe (Maya Rudolph). Giselle uses Andalasian magic to achieve the perfect fairy tale life. But when this endangers her friends and family, she must work to reverse the spell and find her real Happily Ever After.

Idina Menzel and James Marsden reprise their roles as Nancy and Edward, respectively, from the first film. The film also stars Yvette Nicole Brown, Jayma Mays, and Griffin Newman.

Disenchanted was released on November 18, 2022 on Disney+.

Not to be confused with the webcomic of the same name or with Disenchantment.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2

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Disenchanted contains examples of:

• Act of True Love: When Morgan is captured by Malvina, Giselle hands over the wand, the only thing capable of reversing the wish that's destroying Andalasia including Giselle herself, without a second thought and then as the clock strikes Midnight uses the last of her strength to sing one last song to Morgan to prove that she is her true daughter regardless of blood, a fact that helps Morgan resolve her insecurities about her relationship with Giselle and figure out how to use the wand to save the day at the last moment.
• Actor Allusion: Nancy's song, "Love Power", has lyrics that contain multiple references to other roles played by Idina Menzel, who plays Nancy:
  • "Let it grow, let it glow". This is a reference to the song "Let It Go" from Frozen, sung by Elsa, who was played by Idina Menzel.
  • "As a ray of sunshine melts a cave of ice" does double duty as a Frozen reference:
    • On its most basic level, the mention of ice works as a reference to how Elsa has ice power.
    • Extra points for using melting ice to demonstrate to Morgan The Power of Love because more specifically, Elsa has ice power that she doesn't always have a handle on and sometimes manifests in ways that cause problems. Fortunately her sister's unconditional love, demonstrated in a climatic Act of True Love, shows her that love is even more powerful, helping Elsa both to undo mistakes involving her magic and to wield it much more confidently and effectively. And that's exactly the kind of Love Power that ends up saving the day.
  • "It's like soaring on a magic broomstick" calls to mind "Defying Gravity," a song from Wicked (incidentally created by the film's lyricist) sung by Elphaba, a role Idina Menzel originated.
• Actually Quite Catchy: Though Morgan more or less says that Giselle's constant spontaneous musical numbers annoy her, and even tries to prevent her from starting one early on, her actual actions once Giselle does start singing proves otherwise as she just shakes her head, smiles, and goes along with it without further complaint, Foreshadowing that under all that teenage snark and angst, is a girl who still well and truly loves the magical fairy tale whimsy that Giselle represents and desperately wants to take part in it all.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • Once again this movie is Disney light-heartedly making fun of itself, this time focusing on their more contemporary work (i.e. everything fairy tale related released since the first film), such as their recurring use of twist villains, with Giselle unwillingly forced into being a delightfully evil Wicked Stepmother, their live-action remakes, with the real world transformed into a perfectly textbook fairy tale land, and the recent focus on family over romance, as the love story here is between mother and daughter with romance simply being a background element done to fulfill the Cinderella cliché Morgan is forced into.
  • Morgan's song "Perfect," which is an "I Want" Song so generically textbook, in her just wanting something interesting to happen, that it itself is a parody of the trope, albeit a really high-quality one.
• All Just a Dream: After Morgan makes her wish to fix everything and save both worlds, she suddenly wakes up in her bed to everything restored to normal. According to Giselle, this is invoked by Andalasian magic, saying that only the ones who wielded the magic will remember it as more than a dream.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Morgan has become a teenager so Giselle's magical fairy tale whimsy can be awkward in the extreme for Morgan to deal with, however, it's indicated that deep down Morgan still loves all of this, as when Giselle starts up a musical number, after Morgan implores her not to, she just smiles, shakes her head and goes along with it without further complaint.
• Amicable Exes: Giselle and Edward used to be engaged, as did Robert and Nancy. Now all four are shown to be close friends and Giselle and Robert even made Edward and Nancy the godparents of one of their daughters.
• And Starring: The credits list in the trailer goes "with Idina Menzel and James Marsden".
• Animate Inanimate Object:
  • After wishing for a more fairytale life, Giselle wakes up the next morning to find that all her kitchen utensils and appliances have come to life.
  • The scroll for the Wishing Wand can talk.
• Art Shift: The color grading is significantly brighter after Giselle's wish.
• Ascended Extra: In the first film Morgan was simply a supporting character and though a noteworthy one, was all but disconnected from the main conflict, here she takes Robert's place as the Deuteragonist and the entire conflict stems from Giselle's reactions to Morgan's insecurities and feelings of inadequacy.
• Babies Ever After: The story begins with the birth of Sophia, Giselle and Robert's daughter and Morgan's half-sister, being born. The framing device also shows that Pip has two sons he is reading the story to.
• Beam-O-War: Giselle and Malvina's midnight battle starts with both firing beams of magic that clash, with Malvina's purple magic and Giselle's golden (from her wand).
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Giselle wished for a more fairytale life, but in doing so not only does all the good from those stories come to life, so does all the bad.
  Giselle: I wished for a fairy tale life, and it's all gone terribly wrong... (in a deeper voice) or terribly right!
• Became Their Own Antithesis: The usually bubbly and nurturing Giselle inadvertently becomes a cruel, vain Wicked Stepmother.
• Big Bad Ensemble: There are technically two villains in Monrolasia: Malvina, the evil magic queen, and Giselle's Evil Stepmother persona, warring from within.
• Blended Family Drama: Ultimately the crux of the entire conflict, Morgan even as a teenager absolutely adores her stepmother Giselle and all the magical Fairy Tale whimsy she represents, however she's very insecure about the "step" aspect of the relationship since a.) it's a constant reminder that her birth mother walked out on her and her father when she was a baby and b.) the birth of her half-sister only serves to make things worse with Morgan feeling like a fake, a mundane outsider in her own literally magical family. Ultimately this when combined with the stress of an unwanted and difficult move becomes too much for her teenage mind to handle and leads to Morgan verbally taking her frustrations out on Giselle, which is what causes Giselle, who just wants Morgan to be happy, to make her disastrous wish in the first place.
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma: During "Badder" Giselle tries to diss Malvina by saying "she's hard to see, like a smell that lingers in the air" which is lampshaded by the latter as nonsense. She states it's another reason Giselle is unfit to be the main villain.
• Call-Back: Disenchanted heavily references the original movie, from Morgan being pushed down a well in order to cross into another world to Malvina being turned into an Expy of Narissa through the wish.
• Casting Gag: This isn't the first Disney Princess-adjacent property that James Monroe Iglehart (who plays one of Robert's fellow commuters) has been in. He's the first person to have played Genie on Broadway and he also provided the voice for Lance Strongbow in Tangled: The Series.
• Child of Two Worlds: Played for Drama, Robert and Giselle's newborn daughter Sofia may have been born on Earth but is half-Andalasian by blood, however the fact that only a true Andalasian can use Andalasian magic causes Morgan, Giselle's stepdaughter from Earth, to feel left out. Luckily, Andalasian magic runs on Fairy Tale logic where The Power of Love reigns supreme, so being Happily Adopted is no different from being blood-related. As far as Andalasian magic’s concerned, Morgan is a true Andalasian.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: In Giselle's "Monrolasia" reality, Robert is assigned the role of a dashing hero who constantly searches for monsters to fight and innocents to save. This mainly consists of him running head-on into danger with disastrous results.
• Clock Tower: There's one prominently in the center of Monroeville. After the wish, the chimes of each hour start making Giselle more and more like a Wicked Stepmother.
• Cold Ham: Like all Andalasians, Giselle is usually a Large Ham, but as she slips farther into the Wicked Stepmother persona, she hardly raises her voice. This only makes her even more theatrical, however.
• Company Cross References: As with the previous movie, Disenchanted is filled with Disney references.
  • In the opening sequence panning over Andalasia, a young woman can be seen reading to sheep while sitting on the edge of a fountain, much like Belle in Beauty and the Beast.
  • A firefly hanging around Pip's home bears a striking resemblance to Ray from The Princess and the Frog.
  • The beginning of the movie reveals that Giselle was found in the forest as a baby by the various woodland creatures, who then took her in and raised her as one of their own, a la Mowgli and Tarzan.
  • Pip's exclamation "Jumping jellysticks!" mimics another Disney Talking Animal Sidekick's "Jumping jellyfish!"
  • The wish turning Giselle into a wicked stepmother and Morgan into her abused good stepdaughter relies heavily on Cinderella references, from Giselle mimicking Lady Tremaine to Pip turning into an Expy of Lucifer.
  • When Giselle and Morgan go shopping, the dress store has an outfit much like Snow White's iconic costume and one like Belle's ballgown in Beauty and the Beast.
  • There are numerous Snow White references, from Malvina being turned into an evil queen using a magical mirror to Giselle's wicked stepmother persona being a vain woman with a peacock motif.
  • When Giselle realizes she is becoming a wicked stepmother, she spells out to Pip the "rules" of villains in fairytales, which as it turns out are the rules of Disney villains: There Can Only Be One villain (most Disney movies have one villainous antagonist), not counting "minions or pets" (those being the two recurring types of henchmen for Disney movies). She also adds another possible exception: "villains that you don't know are villains until it is too late", a reference to Disney's recent trend of making "twist villains" most famously-illustrated by Frozen (2013).
  • Morgan is locked by her wicked stepmother in a tower from which she must escape through the window.
  • Giselle forces a trio of fairies (who are even dressed in the same colors as Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) to take care of her baby while the evil magical queen Malvina intends on using a "sleeping potion" on her and has a spinning wheel in her lair, as seen in "Badder".
  • During "Perfect", Morgan climbs a stack of boxes and a bucket of water is thrown up behind her, matching a shot from The Little Mermaid.
  • "Badder" is "Disney Villains Shout-Out: The Song". It namedrops Maleficent and Cruella (and the absurdity of a story that features them both), and as Malvina explores her various options for destroying her rival, we see she keeps in her chambers a poisoned apple, a a rose kept under glass and a bottle with "Drink Me" written on it. Malvina also tells Giselle to "jump down a rabbit hole".
  • "Badder" has Giselle instruct Malvina to "go climb a beanstalk." One half of Fun and Fancy Free is dedicated to a Jack and the Beanstalk retelling with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy cast in the role of Jack.
  • "Badder" also a references to a non-Disney fairy tale. Towards the end of the song, Giselle verbally wonders if she can get rid of Malvina by droping a house on her. It could be, however, a reference to the fact that The Wizard of Oz was originally going to be the second installment in the Disney Animated Canon before the success of the MGM movie caused it to get scrapped.
  • The night of the ball, Ruby and Rosaleen are dressed like Anastasia and Drizella from Cinderella.
  • Giselle acting as the wicked stepmother takes scissors to Morgan's new dress for the ball, leaving it in tatters like Cinderella's. As Nancy sings "Love Power" to Morgan at Giselle's memory tree, it restores her dress in a sequence just like Cinderella getting her new one from the Fairy Godmother.
  • The market scene also includes the line "Sugar dates, figs, and pistachios!" from Aladdin.
  • During the reprise of the song "Fairytale Life," a broom moves by itself like in Fantasia, while utensils and electric appliances are alive like in Beauty and the Beast.
• Crowd Song: The reprise of "Fairytale Life", sung by Giselle and the residents of Monrolasia.
• Dark Reprise: "Love Power" is a triumphant Eleven O'Clock Number that extols The Power of Love. "Love Power (Reprise)," however, is far more somber - the only thing that keeps it from being Giselle's Death Song is Morgan reversing the wish at the last second. The trailer also ends with an ominous snippet of "True Love's Kiss" from the first movie.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Much like the previous film, it deconstructs several fairy tale tropes before reconstructing them. The main one it deconstructs is Happily Ever After, with Pip explaining how in the more realistic world Giselle has to work to keep that happy ending, while she and her family face many realistic problems such as a growing distance between her and Morgan as well as Robert feeling depressed over how his work keeps him from his family. This is what leads Giselle to wish for a more fairy tale life, in the hopes that could fix their problems. The reconstruction comes in when it shows that despite the current problems in their lives, Giselle's family truly love each other and their experiences in Monrolasia help them come to terms with their respective problems as well as move forward, showing that while there will always be problems after a character's happy ending that doesn't mean they've lost it.
• Demoted to Extra: Robert and Edward went from major characters in the first film to not having much of a presence here.
  • Robert is offscreen for a surprising amount of time considering he was the deuteragonist of the first film.
  • Edward fares even worse, appearing only briefly in a handful of scenes and given a hand-waved excuse for not appearing at all in the climax.
• Dying Declaration of Love: As Giselle slowly dies alongside Andalasia, she assures a tearful Morgan that she is her daughter and she will always love her.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: A major source of conflict in the film is Giselle's struggle to cope with the difficulties that life throws at her and her family, which throw a wrench in the "happily ever after" that she'd expected.
• Eleven O'Clock Number: "Love Power", as Nancy explains to Morgan how she can save Giselle, Monroeville, and Andalasia.
• Evil Feels Good: When Giselle and Pip finally succumb to their villainous sides, they declare how much more fun it is to be evil.
• Evil Makeover: Seeing her change in wardrobe and hairstyle is her first hint that Giselle is becoming an evil stepmother.
  Giselle: My hair is so high, and my dress is so low!
• Evil Me Scares Me: Giselle and Pip are naturally terrified to find their identities being subsumed to their roles as the villains of the fairy tale wish. Malvina, who was the evil queen of Monrolasia but only remembers it as a vivid dream, shows a softer side towards Giselle implicitly from seeing herself in that role.
• Evil Overlooker: Malvina is framed as antagonistic in the trailer (eg. how she looks down on Giselle's new home and mocks Giselle for the consequences of her actions) and the poster has her face positioned at the very top. Her face also has a darker tint to it than the colorful portraits of the heroes.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Giselle's voice is deeper in her Evil Stepmother persona.
• Eviler than Thou: Wicked Stepmother Giselle and Evil Queen Malvina battle over which one is more evil. In song form, of course ("Badder").
• Evil Versus Evil: In the last quarter of the movie, Wicked Stepmother Giselle decide to confront evil queen Malvina.
• Exact Words:
  • The wish was set to become permanent at "the last stroke of twelve." The scroll never said that had to be at midnight itself if the town clock failed to sound all its strokes, so Robert and Tyson are able to buy a few minutes by jamming their swords into the clock gears.
  • Giselle is not Morgan's biological mother, a fact that Morgan herself reminded Giselle of just before the wish so of course, it would make the latter the Wicked Stepmother.
  • Only a true son or daughter of Andalasia can use the wand however nowhere is it mentioned that it requires a blood relation so Morgan, Giselle's very Happily Adopted stepdaughter counts as far as Andalasian magic is concerned.
• Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: In Monrolasia, dragon fruits now house actual dragons. If the fruit is squishy then the dragon inside is grumpy.
• Forced Transformation:
  • To fit with Giselle's more villainous persona as a Wicked Stepmother, the wish turns Pip from a cute little chipmunk into a menacing Right-Hand Cat.
  • Malvina turns her flunkies into toads for failing to prevent Giselle from retrieving the wand.
• Foreshadowing: When Morgan first appears in Giselle's new "Monrolasia" reality, she's singing about chores and wearing an outfit heavily reminiscent of Cinderella. Specifically, the rags Cinderella wears while under the abusive control of Lady Tremaine, hinting that Morgan in this reality faces similar oppression with Giselle as her Wicked Stepmother, also the fact that she can perfectly replicate Giselle's signature singing vocalization not only foreshadows her role in this reality is that of a Disney Princess and thus is the real hero of the story, but also establishes that blood or not Morgan is Giselle's daughter, a fact that is central to the climax.
• Framing Device: The story is framed as a bedtime story Pip narrates to his children.
• Flower Motifs: If you pay close attention you would see Morgan is surrounded by them, in her bedroom walls, her clothes and even in her hair, symbolizing how she is "blooming" as a woman and coming into her own as an independent person.
• From New York to Nowhere: The moving from New York is especially hard to cope with for Morgane.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Having spent ten years with Giselle as a stepmother, Morgan knows exactly what her life is.
  • When she realizes the full consequences of her wish, Giselle's knowledge of fairytale conventions gives her an edge in navigating herself through Monrolasia.
• The Good King: While Morgan and Nancy go to Monroeville to save Giselle, King Edward stays behind to protect Andalasia and his subjects.
• Hands Looking Wrong: Conversely, when Morgan, Giselle's now teenage step daughter, finds herself in Andalasia she checks her hands and realizes she's become animated. She also wonders how she's become so "pointy" and with perfect eyebrows to boot.
• Happily Adopted: Morgan by Giselle, her stepmother. Morgan calls her mom throughout the film; Robert refers to Giselle as "your mother" when speaking to Morgan. The conflict stems from Morgan's longing for Giselle to be just her mom. Giselle makes it clear at the end of the film that she doesn't care one bit that she and Morgan aren't biologically mother and daughter and has always considered Morgan hers, as the magic of Andalasia itself proves.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When faced with saving Andalasia by undoing the wish or saving Morgan by giving Malvina the wand, Giselle doesn't hesitate to save Morgan which leads to her Disney Death as she is Andalasian.
• Honorary Princess: Though it's never really called out directly, but in Giselle's wished up Fairy Tale world, Morgan is placed in the role of a classic Disney Princess, specifically of the Cinderella archetype even getting an "I Want" Song and her own take on the iconic magic dress transformation shot, interestingly once she breaks free of the spell by going to Andalasia, she still ends up playing the part (that's when the dress transformation happens), albeit now with the proactiveness and heroism of the more modern Princesses like Rapunzel, Anna, and Moana.
• I Hate Past Me: In the Framing Device, Pip claims he hasn't told his kids the sequel's story because he "isn't proud of my role in it". Indeed, he's corrupted by the wish into becoming Evil!Giselle's Right-Hand Cat.
• I Have Your Wife: Malvina puts Morgan in a sleeping curse, threatening to leave her in this state if Giselle undoes her wish.
• I Just Want to Be Special: While she buries it under a mountain of snark and teenage angst, it's implied that Morgan desperately wants to be included in all the magic and that the reason she starts rejecting both fairy tales and Giselle herself is due to feeling left out for not being a "true daughter of Andalasia".
• Indy Ploy: Invoked and Lampshaded by Edward, who states that the group will be able to come up with something very clever at the last minute, saying that it's "how things always work here".
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • When first presenting the Magic Wand as a gift for Giselle's biological daughter, Edward and Nancy make it a point to mention that only a "true son or daughter of Andalasia" can wield its magic, right in front of Morgan - the Andalasian Giselle's stepdaughter who never got such a wand - which inadvertently worsens Morgan's feelings of being left out and further strains her relationship with Giselle because she feels like a "fake daughter of Andalasia."
  • Edward's initial response upon seeing Giselle and Robert's "fixer upper" house in Monroeville is to ask if they're poor.
• "I Want" Song: Parodied, albeit affectionately. Fitting her role in the wish as a Disney Princess, Morgan gets one in her song "Perfect," which is generically textbook, in her just wanting something interesting to happen.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The marketing for the film makes it no secret that Edward and Nancy got married, which was a plot twist in the original film.
• Leitmotif: When Giselle gets the idea to hand out cupcakes in front of the school, campaigning for Morgan to be elected princess, a theme reminiscent of "That's How You Know" from the first film.
• Light Is Not Good: Giselle's Wicked Stepmother self's visual motif is very bright, contrasting Malvina's Dark Is Evil costume and sceneries. Of course, they're both practically the same character (which is copiously lampshaded).
• Magic Wand: Nancy and Edward gift Giselle's new baby an Andalasian wishing wand. Giselle later uses it to wish herself up a fairy tale life. The fact that it can only be used by a true Andalasian just adds to Morgan's insecurities.
• Morphic Resonance: Pip the chipmunk is turned into a large cat, but he keeps his coloration and typical chipmunk stripes.
• Motive Decay: The wicked stepmother in Cinderella and similar fairy tales whose behavior Wicked Stepmother Giselle is based on had a pragmatic reason for interfering in her stepdaughter's relationship with the prince: she wanted one of her own daughters to marry him instead. As Sofia is a baby here, Giselle's actions to separate Morgan and Tyson are just For the Evulz.
• Moving Angst: On top of her anxiety about not feeling like she's Giselle's "real" daughter, Morgan also didn't particularly want to move from the more cosmopolitan New York to the suburbs several hours away. Her first night in her new home ending with her new room being destroyed due to faulty electrics doesn't help.
• Musical Number Annoyance: In the beginning, Giselle tries to cheer up Morgan, by explaining her life will be even better in Monroeville. Morgan quickly answer that she does not need to sing it, but too late: Giselle start bursting into Even More Enchanted.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Giselle has one when she realises her wish is starting to turn her into a villain. She has another towards the end of the film after seeing that said wish is also draining the magic from Andalasia by bringing it into Monrolasia.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The whole plot is kicked off by Edward and Nancy giving a magical device capable of warping reality and destroying their world to a child as a birthday gift. Even if Giselle hadn't abused it the results could have been catastrophic.
• Not Blood, Not Family: When Morgan is angry at her stepmother Giselle, she says, "You're not even my real mother!", hurting her feelings.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Only Andalasians can use the Wishing Wand. When evil queen Malvina tries to use it the magic literally blows up in her face. Morgan, believing herself not to be a true Andalasian daughter, is fearful that it won't work for her but Giselle's love for her means she counts as an Andalasian daughter too.
• Out of Focus: Robert and Edward get hit with this, as does Nancy whose only role is to re-iterate some exposition and provde a pep talk (in song form) to Morgan (who Giselle had already told that memories are the strongest magic of all). Nathaniel isn't present or alluded to whatsoever.
• Or Was It a Dream?: After the world is restored to normal, Giselle explains to Morgan that those who don't cast the spell only remember it as a dream, which is demonstrated by Robert casually recalling "crazy dreams" he had the night before.
• Please Wake Up: After Giselle's Disney Death, Morgan can only tearfully beg her mom to wake up.
  Morgan: No no no, what do I wish for?
• The Power of Love: Familial love, and not blood, is what makes people family and enables Morgan to use the wand to undo Giselle's wish.
• Power at a Price: Giselle using the wand to rewrite Monroeville into Monrolasia threatens to destroy Andalasia because the spell takes its power from there. It also apparently comes close to destroying the real world based on how much damage occurs when the wish almost becomes permanent.
• Race Against the Clock: Giselle is initially racing against the clock as she begins to notice her corruption into a Wicked Stepmother. The Wishing Scroll explains that the spell will be permanent at the stroke of midnight, but the others start trying to break the curse on Giselle before working on undoing the wish.
• Reality Bleed: Giselle's wish saps Andalasia's magic into our world through thick vines, and eventually gets to the point where entire buildings, including Giselle's old tree house, end up being dragged through the space between realities.
• Reference Overdosed: The movie has a plethora of references to Disney films, as well as other fantasy and fairy tale stories like The Wizard of Oz.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Live-action Nancy watches in a mirror as the animated world of Andalasia and Edward begins to disappear as the magic pours into Monrolasia.
• Sadistic Choice: Giselle has to choose between undoing her wish and saving Andalasia but leaving her beloved Morgan in a sleeping curse (effectively killing her), or giving the wand to Malvina, saving Morgan, but letting Andalasia (including herself) die. She chooses to save Morgan.
  Giselle: But if I do that, Andalasia dies.
  Malvina: And if you don't do it, she dies.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Downplayed. Morgan, as a teenager, has started to use sarcasm a lot. Giselle isn't entirely blind to it, but she's not very good at picking it up and it usually takes her a few seconds to realize it's being used. Until she becomes an evil stepmother, where she uses it against Morgan.
• Shout-Out: In a reference that for once doesn't reference Disney (sort of), during the climax Giselle weaponizes Disney Creatures of the Farce in a very similar fashion to Snow White in Shrek the Third.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Malvina in reality is a subversion, who seems to be set up as a rival to Giselle at first. She's a true Mean Girl all grown up and lording her position over other mothers, but never really reaches into villain territory except under the wish's influence. But she acts a bit nicer once the wish is undone, and she and Giselle quickly extend an olive branch to each other.
• Slow Transformation: As the instruction-scroll for the wand reveals, the transformation of Giselle into a wicked stepmother is a step-by-step process: first comes the wickedness, then the vanity, the cruelty, and finally the ambition.
• Split Personality: As Giselle is forced by the wish to become an Evil Stepmother, that part of her ends up resembling this. Giselle even refers to "her" as if she were a different person and at one point the two sides hold a conversation with each other. The stroke of midnight will result in a permanent Split-Personality Takeover if the wish isn't undone by then, though Giselle's good side is essentially buried by the evil side for most of the third act already.
• Story Within a Story: The story is framed as a bedtime story that Pip is telling his children.
• Suddenly Voiced: With Giselle's wish bringing magic to Monroeville, Pip can now speak in the real world, which he lampshades.
  Pip: Jumping jellysticks! Wait, how am I talking?
• Supporting Protagonist: With Giselle forced into the role of a Wicked Stepmother, she winds up being the unwilling Big Bad and Villain Protagonist of the film, it's ultimately the new Deuteragonist Morgan who ends up in the role of a Disney Princess and thus The Hero of the story.
• Tentacle Rope: After placing Morgan in a sleeping curse, Malvina binds her in magical moving vines.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: As a side effect of the spell, Giselle begins adopting the morals and mannerisms of a Rich Bitch, or in this case, a Wicked Stepmother.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Edward and Nancy visiting to give the Wishing Wand to their goddaughter sets up the plot. Especially Edward saying if there's anything they don't like about their world, then they should change it.
• Villain Song: "Badder" is an Evil Versus Evil variant of this, sung by Giselle's Wicked Stepmother persona and Monroe, complete with Ham-to-Ham Combat as they boast about how they're badder than each other.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal: While she doesn't really show it Morgan feels this way towards Giselle, wishing that she really was her mother rather than just her stepmother, primarily so that she can be a "true daughter of Andalasia" and thus be included in all the magic, though it's really all in her head because as far as Giselle is concerned, Morgan truly is her daughter.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The Wishing Wand's sentient scroll intones that "at the last stroke of twelve, nothing will be as it was before." As the time draws nearer, both Robert and Tyson battle against the mechanisms within the clock to prevent it from chiming the last stroke of Midnight.
• Wicked Stepmother: As a result of Be Careful What You Wish For, Giselle's Hollywood Midlife Crisis-driven wish to make life in the real world more like a fairytale starts making her act like one of these.
• Wizard Duel: Giselle confronts Malvina at the festival, intending to usurp her as queen of Monrolasia. The two duke it out with magic, beginning with a Beam-O-War and following with Giselle transmuting Malvina's attacks into birds and butterflies.
• Yellow/Purple Contrast: During the climactic Wizard Duel, Malvina's magic is deep violet while Giselle's is golden.
• You Have Failed Me / You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Malvina's henchwomen come in, admitting they'd lost the wand, she turns them both into toads with her magic.
• You're Not My Mother: In a moment of anger, Morgan affirms that Giselle will only ever be her stepmother. It breaks Giselle's heart enough to motivate her to do her wish, though as it turns out Morgan actually wishes she was her mother, so it likely hurts Morgan just as much to say as it does for Giselle to hear.
  Morgan: My mother? She is my stepmother and that's all she'll ever be.

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