Movie Review – ‘Godmothered’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Last year, I shared my review on ‘Noelle’, which was a Disney+ original film shown in 2019. This year, I saw ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’; which I guess is this year’s Disney+ original film for Christmas. So, it makes sense to check out the Disney+ original Christmas film shown in 2020 called ‘Godmothered’.

‘Godmothered’ is another live-action take of the Cinderella story we all know and love, although this one is done with a twist and sort-of redefines what true love is all about. The film received mixed reviews from critics when it came out on Disney+ in 2020. I enjoyed the film when I saw it recently. 🙂

The film features Jillian Bell as Eleanor, a fairy godmother-in-training, who tries to help Isla Fisher as Mackenzie, who was once a young girl, but grew up and later forgot about ‘happily ever after’. There is a pretty intriguing element of ‘Enchanted’ featured in the film, which I saw recently on Disney+. 😀

This is in Eleanor’s naïve experience of the real world, which almost matches to Giselle’s naïve experience of the real world in ‘Enchanted’. It’s also interesting that the film doesn’t have Eleanor instantly falling in love with someone, which she could have had, and this became more like ‘Frozen’. 🙂

It was fun to see the comedic aspects of the film, especially when Eleanor tried to fulfil Mackenzie’s dream of ‘happily ever after’, but doesn’t do so well on the job. I’m not sure if Eleanor missed her mark when she went to meet Mackenzie as a 10-year-old before she realised she had all grown-up. 🙂

At first, I thought Mackenzie maybe didn’t end up falling in love with someone or perhaps had a divorce, especially when she has two children in Jillian Shea Spaeder as Jane and Willa Skye as Mia. But it turns out Mackenzie lost her husband who tragically died, which was quite saddening to hear.

This film could have easily been set at anytime of the year instead of Christmas. But because it is Christmas that this film is set, it makes the film experience worthwhile in terms of an emotional connection with the characters. There are plenty of fun moments as well as dramatic moments here.

As well as Jillian Bell and Isla Fisher, the film also features Jane Curtin as Moira, the headmistress of the Motherland where the fairy godmothers are in training. It’s ironic that Eleanor is the only youngest fairy godmother-in-training in Motherland, while the rest of them are quite elderly indeed.

There’s Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Paula, Mackenzie’s sister, and Santiago Cabrera (who you may recognise as Chris Rios from ‘Star Trek: Picard’) as Hugh Prince, a potential love interest for Isla Fisher’s Mackenzie. There’s Artemis Pebdani as Duff, another of Mackenzie’s co-workers and Utkarsh Ambudkar as Grant, who is Mackenzie’s mean-spirited boss.

Other fairy godmothers in Motherland include Stephnie Weir as Barb and June Squibb as Agnes. Agnes provides the voice-over narration for most of the film. Agnes is also Eleanor’s best friend, who warns her about what’s going on whilst she’s away from Motherland in trying to sort out Mackenzie.

The film does feature clips and songs from ‘The Sound of Music’ in it, which is available to watch on Disney+ by the way. Eleanor and Mackenzie’s two daughters Jane and Mia end up singing ‘My Favourite Things’ in public. Eleanor isn’t exactly the greatest singer when she’s singing all by herself.

Instead of ending the film on a live-action epilogue, we’re given traditional animation on what happened to Eleanor when she becomes a teacher in Motherland. Not sure if the Covid-19 pandemic had anything to do with this – please keep safe – but I would have preferred the epilogue in live-action.

‘Godmothered’ has been an entertaining film featuring Jillian Bell and Isla Fisher in a story about a young fairy godmother-in-training set around Christmas time. I can’t say I enjoyed this more than ‘Noelle’ and ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’, but it was entertaining enough and nice to see at Christmas.

Also, I didn’t know Rocket the Racoon was in this movie! 😀

Rocket: “Don’t call me a raccoon!”

Yeah, whatever! 😐

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂