Review of Into the Woods (2014) by Patrick C — 11 Jun 2015

Director Rob Marshall returns with another musical adaptation for the holidays. His Chicago won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2002, but he has since encountered mixed reactions for 2005's Memoirs of a Geisha (Oscar bait of the worst kind) and his second musical effort, 2009's unsuccessful adaptation of Nine. Into the Woods provides a return to form for Marshall, and most holiday movie-goers will be satisfied with this screen version - especially fans already familiar with the material.

Into the Woods was a Broadway smash and multiple Tony-winner in 1988. It lost Best Musical to the juggernaut Phantom of the Opera but became almost as beloved and was revived in 2002 in another successful Broadway effort. Creators James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, weave together the classic fairy tales of Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel, The Baker and His Wife and Little Red Riding Hood and presents them as classic allegories for growing up, leaving home, surviving life's challenges and disappointments and realizing that it doesn't always end happily - or as you wish for it to. Sondheim's compositions here are as crisp and glorious as they are in his other well known gems - Sweeney Todd, Gypsy and West Side Story.

The wood represents the big, wide, dangerous world that all children must eventual enter into. Cinderella - gamely played by Pitch Perfect's Anna Kendrick - just can't make up her mind about her prince and wonders if a life of comfort and money really makes her happy. Prince Charming is played by Star Trek's Chris Pine in a show-stealing comedic performance never before seen by this cover boy. He's a hoot. "I was raised to be charming, not sincere.".

Rapunzel makes a risky choice to leave the safety of her tower prison. The Baker and his wife - James Corden and a fantastic Emily Blunt - are willing to lie, cheat and steal to have a child. Jack wishes for a better life, and a precocious Red Riding Hood tempts fate to get what she wants. Not to be missed is Johnny Depp - all glorious swagger in his cameo as the Big Bad Wolf. All these characters in the end learn the lesson: careful what you wish for.

The first half of the film is a rollicking entertainment while the second half deals with the effects of all the chicanery the characters have committed to get what they want. And the woods - as life sometimes does - takes a darker turn.

Through it all we have the divine Meryl Streep who tops her singing turn in 2008's Mamma Mia and seems destined for Oscar nomination number 19! As the witch, she tries to desperately hold on to her "daughter" Rapunzel at all costs and in the end her choice is perhaps the darkest and most desperate. A vengeful woman who refused to accept change and challenge, she is the connective tissue for the plot lines, and in Streep's capable hand Into the Woods roars.