Faustian bargains are at the heart of Shrek Forever After, the final chapter in the Shrek franchise, and those bargains raise interesting questions for the law of contract (even as the marketing of the film has raised others).
Like Australia (and in many ways even more than the obvious Paper Chase) Shrek Forever After is really A Movie About Contract Law!
Warning: plot spoilers When the movie begins, our hero, Shrek, is suffering a classic mid-life crisis; he is dissatisfied with married life, and pining for the old days, when he was a terrifying ogre rather than a domesticated tourist attraction. Rumpelstiltskin, the evil and manipulative magic deal-maker, offers Shrek the opportunity to spend a day as a real ogre again, in return for another day from Shrek’s childhood. The YouTube clip at the top left is the scene in which Rumpelstiltskin cajoles Shrek into agreeing. Having signed on the dotted line, Shrek is transported into an alternate reality. At first, he enjoys being fearsome one again. But the catch – and there’s always a catch – is that the day Rumpelstiltskin takes is the day of Shrek’s birth. This means that Shrek was not there to rescue Princess Fiona in the first movie; and her desperate parents, King Harold and Queen Lillian, turned to Rumpelstiltskin, and signed over the kingdom of Far Far Away to him in return for having all of their problems disappear. They disappeared, and the kingdom is now subject to Rumpelstiltskin’s tyrannical rule. It is a world where ogres are hunted criminals and Fiona leads the resistance; and when Shrek’s day as a frightening ogre is over, it will all be as if he had never existed. However, Donkey reveals to Shrek a sneakily-hidden exit clause in his contract with Rumpelstiltskin: if Shrek receives “True Love’s First Kiss”, the contract will be rendered null and void. So, the third act of the movie turns on Shrek’s efforts to get Fiona to fall in love with him and kiss him before the morning.
Just with the contracts at the heart of The Merchant of Venice or Peter Greenaway’s wonderful The Draughtsman’s Contract, the plot of this movie also turns on cultural assumptions about the binding nature and literal enforcement of written contracts – even dubious contracts. (more…)