Karen Heller | Hooray for happily ever afters

Enchanted

is - what else? - enchanting. It's the rare commercial product to live up to its name. And as Giselle, Amy Adams is a princess to adore, the love object of the season.

Disney, a profoundly humorless conglomerate despite its dependency on cartoons, has done the unthinkable. The Magic Monetary Kingdom has mocked its aspartame world view, the whole princess paradigm, and taken in a five-day haul of $49.1 million.

Having spent her life as if on an extreme cocktail of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Giselle is banished to Manhattan, "a place where there are no happily-ever-afters" as evil queen Susan Sarandon calls it.

Specifically, Giselle is sent to Times Square, which, in reality, long ago was Disneyfied into the true mall of America, an area most New Yorkers avoid like the suburbs.

The irony is that Giselle gradually becomes human, which is for once promoted as a superior state. She experiences anger, without benefit of a therapist or driving, to say nothing of holiday shopping, and finds the sensation enjoyable.

Attired in frocks that render Scarlett O'Hara a minimalist (she shares Scarlett's gift for making curtains into gowns), Giselle yearns to become a modern woman, that is, a fashion designer, and to marry a real man, which would be a divorce lawyer.

But Susan is wrong: The sweethearts do manage to live happily ever after, perhaps because Prince Lawyer McDreamy is a corporate partner with a roomy Upper West Side apartment.

The princess myth runs deep. Most parents hope their daughters will get over it, like the flu, though there is something intoxicating about getting woodland critters or urban vermin to clean your home through mere song.

The idea is to get girls to make their own happiness, not wait for some guy with a white steed or a golden partnership. Once the Disney dream passes, the Jane Austen stage looms, and it can settle in for decades while you're waiting for Colin Firth to arrive.

This is not lost on Disney. The five-year-old Princess division has become a $4 billion business, selling not only to girls but grown women. A collection of Disney Fairy Tale Wedding Dresses offers styles named for Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Jasmine, Ariel and Belle - plus (because every bride requires one) three distinct tiaras. The company hopes to roll out grown-up princess sleep togs and housewares soon. Whether a princess actually cooks is another matter.

Enchanted extends the myth of empowerment. Giselle literally saves her modern prince, yet ends up designing princess dresses for girls. Prince Lawyer McDreamy's girlfriend, a fashion designer, falls for the princess package. She's entranced by vapid Prince Edward, and returns with him as a cartoon to mythic Andalasia, which sounds suspiciously like some suburban gated community.

On Saturday, my family traveled to "the place where there are no happily-ever-afters," though this was hardly the case for European and Japanese shoppers flooding the New York boutiques, giddy now that the dollar is Goofy.

I found myself pointing out such Enchanted locations as the Time Warner Center, where Prince Lawyer McDreamy works. This is weird when you think about it, given that the companies are rivals and all. Unless, perhaps, it has something to do with the cable deal the two inked earlier this year.

Later, we strolled along Fifth Avenue and there, in the windows of the World of Disney store, were Giselle's dresses from the movie, her poufy wedding-white Before and her streamlined mauve column size 2 After. Guess which girl-size version you can buy in the store?

The movie is modern and, then again, not. In Enchanted, Disney gets to have its modern morality and its 35-inch Giselle My Size plush doll, too, yours for $24.99 plus shipping.