Review of Spellbound, directed by Vicky Jenson

If you’re new here, welcome to my blog! I write about movies, television, books, theatre, and travel on this site. It’s also been what keeps me going doing a difficult time that I’ve dubbed funemployment. Long story short, I was supposed to be abroad, but life is weird and things didn’t work out. So I’ve been watching a lot of movies/television shows and reading a lot, so this blog is documenting that weird little journey of life.

I’ve been a big fan of Rachel Zegler for a while now. I watched West Side Story when it first came out, even though I didn’t want to because of Ansel Elgort. Rachel and Mike were the standouts in that movie, and I’ve been following her career ever since.

I had no idea Spellbound existed though until right before it came out. I had literally just bought tickets to see Rachel in Romeo + Juliet two days before it came out, then I looked at her Instagram and realized she was in this Netflix movie.

So I patiently waited a few days, and then it was available to watch. I didn’t watch it immediately because I wanted to finish the last arc of the Arcane television series, so the day after I sat down to watch it after waking up early due to my cat wanting attention.

Here’s that review! I don’t want to ramble too much already in the introduction.

After her parents were turned into monsters, a young girl sets out with them to figure out how to change them back.

This movie takes place in a magical kingdom named Lumbria, and the typical typical rules of reality are not applicable. Our protagonist is the princess of this land, Ellian, and she has a massive problem on her hands: her parents were turned into a monsters a year ago. They can’t communicate and basically act like animals throughout the palace.

Ellian has been left to take care of the kingdom all by herself, which leads to some mental strain, especially when her birthday rolls around. She writes to the Oracles of the Sun and Moon in order to seek guidance, and they eventually agree to meet with her. It seems like her birthday might be turning point, but when they show up, the monster forms of her parents scare them off.

They do leave behind a magical device named Fob with them, which Ellian’s pet, Flink, discovers and swallows. But when Ellian later lets the monsters out of their cage, they escape into the town, and the people of the kingdom discover what happened to their beloved monarchs.

The general demands that they be exiled from the kingdom. Ellian disagrees with this, so with Flink, she uses the Fob in order to get them out of there. But as the army and the ministers chase them, she accidentally switches Flink out with the minister Bolinar. Flink’s brain is in his body, rendering his human body vaguely useless and only animalistic, and Bolinar is freaked out to see himself as a purple rat.

The group does eventually reach the oracles, who tell them to go to the Lake of Light. We get the first hints of what really happened right after this, as when the group gets more upset inside of a tunnel, the darkness that transformed her parents appears. The monarchs regain their ability to speak, but show no memories of their past lives.

They all reach the desert and the army is in hot pursuit. Over the shades of darkness the sand turns into quicksand, which Ellian and crew quickly figure out. They escape the army narrowly, rescuing a baby gryphon in the process. The adult gryphons take them to meet their herd (is that the right terminology for gryphons?), and Ellian’s parents remember her as their daughter.

Then Bolinar gains hope of things becoming normal. The group runs into a community of Flinks, which Bolinar comes to accept and befriend, and the Flinks show them where they need to go next.

Up next is the Lake of Light, where we learn that Ellian’s parents were constantly arguing—seems like they were not a perfect match of love, despite what Ellian might think. It’s at the Lake of Light they come to terms that they need to end their marriage, and for some reason they decide to tell Ellian right then and there.

The dark magic appears as Ellian becomes upset, and the army shows up to capture her parents. Ellian is left behind in the dark storm, but with the help of the entire Flink community and their talent at spitting worms, they convince the army and general that they’re the monarchs and are rationally minded now.

Ellian is about to turn into a monster herself, so her parents scale the walls and use the light of the lake to get Ellian out of the dark. Then they tell her about how they love her so much, and that nothing will change, Ellian comes to terms with what happened.

The spell then wears off and her parents become human again. They move into separate castles and divorce, but still rule the kingdom efficiently. The movie ends with Ellian’s next birthday and everyone coming together to celebrate it.

Overall Thoughts

This is a pretty straightforward movie when it comes to plot, and it honestly kind of reminded me of Wish. One of the highlights to me is Zegler’s singing, even though the plot moves way too quickly towards the end and kind of gives me whiplash.

I say that because Ellian accepted the situation pretty quickly. We get that she’s a girl forced to grow up too soon because of what happened to her parents, she is mature, but that seemed a little too rushed to me. Maybe I’m wrong though; I’ve never been in that situation.

I do think this is a forgettable movie though. There’s not anything that stands out to me when it comes to plot, characters, or theme, and the songs themselves I wasn’t thinking about by the time I finished the movie. It’s still entertaining when I watched it, and I did not consider once turning it off.

I’d say go ahead and watch it if you haven’t already. You may find it worth it if you’re interested in the plot. Don’t let one somewhat negative review completely cloud your judgement!

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