The Little Mermaid Cast and Characters

The story begins with an old grandmother telling her two granddaughters the story of The Little Mermaid. In the story, a little mermaid princess finally turns old enough to go up to the surface. There, she saves a prince from a shipwreck, falls in love with him, and carries him to the beach, but he only gets a blurry glimpse of her before she is scared off by a girl coming onto the beach and disappears into the ocean. The prince sees the girl instead and assumes she saved him. Under the sea, the mermaid visits a wizard, Locke, who agrees to give her legs. However, these legs come with a price: If the mermaid marries the prince, she can be with him forever. If she doesn't, her soul will belong to the wizard. The mermaid agrees to these terms and becomes human. But before she can proclaim her love to the prince, she finds out that he has already married the girl from the beach. The mermaid pleads with the wizard to give her more time, but the wizard refuses and steals her soul. Now the mermaid is forced to live a life away from her ocean home, unloved, and enslaved to the wizard for all eternity.

Despite their youth, the girls don't believe this story until their grandmother tells them a tale of a girl she knew who met a mermaid. The tale begins with a young reporter named Cam. Cam is writing a letter while his niece Elle plays outside. Elle has an undiagnosed condition with no cure. Elle starts coughing and is carried inside by Cam. Cam then goes to work and is assigned by his boss to investigate Locke's mermaid healing water. Cam hopes this water can cure Elle.

Cam and Elle arrive in Mississippi and visit the circus, where Cam and Elle meet a beautiful mermaid trapped in a glass tank. After this, Cam bumps into Dr. Locke and the mermaid, but Cam is distracted by Elle's return from the Ferris wheel.

The next day, Cam questions several people who have taken Locke's mermaid water. Cam discovers that none of them have actually been cured of their ailments.

Cam and Elle then take a walk in the woods, where they meet the mermaid again. The mermaid introduces herself as Elizabeth and explains that she can walk when it is low tide. Locke is then shown with Elizabeth’s soul, and Elizabeth suddenly leaves.

Cam sneaks back into the circus and overhears a conversation between Locke and his henchman, Sid. Cam is distracted by Elizabeth's singing and follows her voice to her tent. Locke and Sid enter and force Cam to leave.

With the help of Thora, a fortune teller, and Ulysses, a circus performer, Cam and Elle snatch the vial that contains Elizabeth's soul, release Elizabeth from her tank, and escape to the ocean, defeating Locke in the process. Elizabeth is reunited with her soul and heals Elle, telling her that all she needs is a swim when she is feeling sick. Cam and Elizabeth share a farewell kiss before Elizabeth swims away.

The story ends with the grandmother coughing. Her granddaughters follow her when she says, "time for a swim", and it is revealed that the grandmother is Elle when she transforms into a mermaid in the water.