Review of Into the Woods (2014) by Anneke14 — 03 Jan 2015

A movie with a group of well-known characters played by well-known actors and actresses, they were not just picked because of their fame. Each actor had to have the ability to sing, for this was a Broadway musical. Some, such as Daniel Huttlestone, Lilla Crawford, and Anna Kendrick, had already worked on a musical, and Kendrick had been in Broadway musicals before. Kendrick being cast as Cinderella with brunette hair was a huge surprise because Cinderella has always had blonde hair, at least that’s what the Disney version had. The original Grimm story never stated her hair color, which is what the film was basing the plot on. Also, in the fairytale, Cinderella did have a golden slipper, as does the Cinderella from the movie, and that shoe is used in the potion, a key ingredient to the plot.

Other costume pieces had to be used in the film for the potion, such as the red cape, the long hair, and the witch’s ugliness. With Little Red Riding Hood with the cape and Rapunzel with the hair, the potion could be made. The witch needs to be a truly hideous monster in order to intimidate the other characters. The costume was great for lots of movement, because the witch had to move in many fast agile ways. The long, curve gross fingernails would have frightened me, as well as the mess of blue-gray hair. When turned beautiful, her dress matched with her now-stunning blue pile of hair. The shoulders on the arms were very unique. Most of the costumes seemed to be straight from a fairytale. Cinderella’s pure gold dress, a huge contrast from her servant clothes, was stunning. The poorer characters, such as the baker’s wife, wearing a random mush of fabric sown together, and Jack’s mother, a dreary off-white and brown dress, could easily show their lack of wealth, but it was not shown the same. The baker’s wife was more colorful, and both seemed to fit a different time period. All the costume looked like they could be in a different time period, with the step sister’s hair definitely a Lady Gaga or future hairstyle compared to the wolf’s zoot suit from the late 1930s, but the characters all went well together despite being so different.

“He was robbing me, raping me, rooting through my rutabaga, raiding my arugula,” This line just by its self is full of passion, but the way the witch shrieked and thundered it out, the audience could feel the resentment and the pain through her voice and words. She held herself up with the doorframe, and was spiraling all over the room in anger, nicely exaggerated movement to draw the audience in. When the baker had his breakdown after hearing that his wife had died, he did honestly seem like a person that had lost a special thing. Every character was so well played, that you forgot they these were not people, but actors. The lighting suddenly darkening added a frightening mood to the scene.

The Prince’s fight over who was in more pain was a bit more comical, with Rapunzel’s Prince saying, “Agony! Far more painful than yours, when you know she would go with you, if there only were doors.” Our theater laughed at that. The song then continued the bickering, getting louder as they try to prove their point, until they both agree that they are equally in agony. You could feel the pain they are going through, they needed those girls whom they loved. Along with the powerful singing, the dialogue also helped the story, with the story ending with the beginning thanks to the narrator in the end being the baker. “Once upon a time in a far-away kingdom,” the film starts with. Later, the baker starts to tell the story to his son, “Once upon a time in a far-away kingdom.”.

With it being filmed in the UK, most characters had an accent, but this added more to the unreal effect of a fairytale. The woods in the "It Takes Two" scene had two trees just the right length apart with a hill for the baker to roll down. The trees were like poles for it to be easy to dance around. Lots of trees were specially made for a dance, like the tree for Cinderella’s mother. The story had introduced all the characters by song at first, and song later showed what they wanted and had. The ending had much less song and more action, a faster more intense part of the production. Mostly it was slow, with every time the bakers spotted a piece from the instructions, the piece was hard to find, hard to acquire, or hard to keep. I don’t think that this is a great movie for kids, besides the violence. There is more need to understand and have more patience with the characters. Kids won’t be able to sit through this movie. It is a darker fairytale, but the Grimm stories normally are. I loved how it was a change from the pretty-perfect fairytale world we know. The songs were not just thrown in; they were sown into the story to help it along. I loved this movie and would definitely have my friends, even if they aren’t into musicals.