A Simple Wish is a 1997 children's-fantasy-comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie, and starring Martin Short, Mara Wilson, and Kathleen Turner. The film about a bumbling male fairy godmother named Murray (Short), who tries to help eight-year-old Annabel (Wilson) fulfill her wish that her father, a carriage driver, wins the leading role in a Broadway musical. It was the last film from director Michael Ritchie before his death in 2001.
Plot[]
Carriage driver Oliver Greening aspires to perform on Broadway and, despite an outstanding audition for a new musical based on A Tale of Two Cities, he loses out to the seasoned Tony Sable, who is considered more bankable than the unknown Oliver.
Later that night, Annabel, Oliver's young daughter, does not convince her brother Charlie that fairy godmothers exist, and after they fall asleep, she awakens to find Murray, a male fairy godmother, in her room. Murray, who is treated with disdain for being a man in a female-dominated profession, agrees to grant Annabel's wish that her father get the part so that her family will not have to move to Nebraska, hoping that by doing so he will be taken seriously.
Hortence, the head fairy godmother, oversees the North American Fairy Godmothers Association (NAFGA)'s annual meeting. All participants must turn in their wands so that no trouble occurs. The evil witch Claudia, who was banished from the NAFGA for her selfish use of magic, sneaks in and turns Hortence into paper with a curse. She then steals all the collected wands; Murray arrives late to the conference and does not check his wand in, making it the only one she does not have.
Seeing Murray accidentally left his wand behind in his rush to make it to the conference, Annabel plans to return it to him. However, Charlie breaks it. Annabel glues the broken pieces together and gives it to Murray, only to wind up in Nebraska after the former botches a spell for instantaneous travel. An angry local threatens them, and Murray tries to turn him into a tiny rabbit but instead transforms him into a giant rabbi. Before the giant stomps on them, Murray casts the travel spell again, and they wind up in the Central Park zoo just as Oliver arrives in his carriage with Charlie.
Annabel begs Murray to grant her wish, but he accidentally turns Oliver into a statue. To fix it, the three go to ask Hortence for help, only to find her still under Claudia's curse. While Murray fixes his wand with Charlie's help, Hortence reveals that, in keeping with the rules governing fairy godmothers, Annabel must break Murray's spell by midnight, or Oliver will be a statue forever. Claudia, meanwhile, realizes that Hortense had secretly given her wand to Murray so as to keep her from regaining her full power.
At the theatre, Annabel asks Murray to try sabotaging Sable's audition. First, he tries to make it rain on the stage, but the weak downpour is dismissed as a simple technical problem, and the audition continues. Then she asks him to give Sable a "frog in his throat" to impair his singing. Murray takes this literally, and frogs start hopping out of Sable's mouth, shocking everyone.
Nevertheless, Sable is given the part as the director refuses to wait for Oliver and wants to get the show into production. Boots, Claudia's dog-turned-human servant, finds them. Murray and Annabel trick Boots into taking them to Claudia by begging her not to. Claudia demands that they hand over her wand, and when they refuse, she resorts to torture by enchanting them to dance for her amusement until they are worn out.
Annabel keeps Claudia distracted while Charlie attempts to give Murray the wand, but Boots manages to grab it. Murray then plays on Boots being unhappy with the way Claudia treats her to convince her that he should have the wand instead of her mistress. Claudia attacks him, but Murray tricks her into casting a spell that traps her within her own magic mirror, which he shatters to keep her imprisoned for eternity.
Murray, Charlie, and Annabel return to Central Park and restore Oliver just in time for him to be given the part of Sable's understudy. To grant Annabel's wish, Murray appears backstage and causes Sable to slip on a bucket and twist his ankle. The resulting temper tantrum gets him fired and Oliver, his understudy, takes over. Charlie and Annabel watch the show with Murray and the other fairy godmothers.
Cast[]
- Martin Short as Murray: The first male fairy godmother.
- Mara Wilson as Annabel Greening: Oliver's daughter and Charlie's younger sister.
- Kathleen Turner as Claudia: A former fairy godmother turned witch who seeks revenge for having her wand taken away.
- Amanda Plummer as Boots: A dog enchanted by Claudia into a human woman, who serves her mistress loyally despite being pushed around.