Godmothered – A Formulaic Holiday Comedy (Early Review)

Many recent holiday family films have for better or worse kept to the same formula. One could easily say that if isn’t broke, then don’t fix it as it does still appeal to a large enough subset of audiences but nevertheless, the subgenre has gotten rather tiresome to watch as a result. Cue Godmothered, the latest holiday family film that is a cross between Enchanted and Elf though those who have seen any holiday family film have more or less already seen this one. That being said, it was not without its moments and charm. However, those can only go so far as they are not quite enough to distract from a painfully derivative and predictable story that many will simply tune out long before its reaches the end of its slightly too long running time of 110 minutes. While the film is not necessarily great or terrible by any means, it is simply a forgettable one at the end of the day.

Godmothered tells the story of a young aspiring fairy godmother named Eleanor (Bell) who attempt to prove herself, despite her inexperience, by venturing out into the real world and helping a young girl named Mackenzie (Fisher), now an adult whose request for help to find her happily ever after was ignored. Even reading this far, it should be pretty easy to figure out what happens next and those guesses are most likely correct. That familiarity factor does lessen its impact but the film will ultimately survive on the relationship between Mackenzie and Eleanor. Though it did have its moments, the overall experience was mostly on the dull side while Eleanor’s energy does come off as obnoxious more often than not and sucks up a lot of the air. The obvious contrast between both women that the film plays for comedic effect was lazy and repetitive and the way it plays it for dramatic effect was derivative and predictable, checking off the same plot beats as each taught the other lessons and so on and so forth.

Audiences can expect plenty of hijinks and growing pains as the two opposites in Eleanor and Mackenzie experienced some growing pains as the two budded heads over the course of their relationship. Mackenzie was a broken down woman by tragedy who found refuge in her work as the rest of her family lagged along while Eleanor was an over-enthusiastic and uber-ambitious aspiring fairy grandmother with an arguably antiquated view of the world that was instilled in her at a young age (her backstory didn’t really matter all that much). It wasn’t always easy but the each helped the other, and her family, pull themselves out of their respective funks in a not surprising whatsoever way, resulting in a not surprising whatsoever ending in spite of the film building itself up as a different kind of fairytale.

As far as the performances were concerned, Godmothered was fine though it wasn’t a challenging film by any means. Bell’s performance as Eleanor will surely divide audiences either by doing too much and rubbing some the wrong way or just enough in terms of personality and energy to entertain. However, the former was more the case here. While she does bring charm, it does wear out its welcome rather quickly. Meanwhile. Fisher as Mackenzie played a decent straight man to Bell’s Eleanor though being the polar opposite of Bell energy wise until she eventually unstiffens herself and opens up more. They have chemistry but it can’t quite make up for the dull material.

In the end, Godmothered doesn’t bring anything new to the table but for many, that whimsy will be enough, just keep in mind that we’ve seen it before.

still courtesy of Disney

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.