Review of Into the Woods (2014) by Ray O — 10 Aug 2015

At the time when the Brothers Grimm were collecting, editing and writing down tales from German folklore, "the woods" was a well-known, but mysterious place. The peasants who told and retold these stories mainly lived in villages surrounded by forests. As familiar as they were with that environment, the seemingly endless seas of trees was dark, contained many dangers, known and unknown, and was a place in which it would be easy to lose one's way. It's no wonder that so many of the tales shared by the Grimms and their countrymen took place in forests. With so many legendary characters wandering amongst the trees, it seems both brilliant and simple, inevitable and overdue that several of these stories would be combined into theatrical productions, as well as the motion picture "Into the Woods" (PG, 2:05).

The film follows the main plot and contains most of the characters from the 1987 Steven Sondheim musical on which it is based, but also streamlines the story a bit and softens some of the details to make it more family-friendly. A local witch (Meryl Streep) reveals to a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) that the reason they are childless is that she placed a spell on the baker's family after his father stole from her garden many years before. She offers them a chance to reverse the curse if they gather four items that she can't personally touch, but can be combined in a potion which will restore her former youth and beauty. The couple must find and bring her "a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold." It's a good thing for the baker and his wife that all four of those items are either already in the woods or will be traversing the woods in the near future. A boy named Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), a girl with a red cape and hood (Lilla Crawford), a girl with VERY long blonde hair (MacKenzie Mauzy) and a put-upon cleaning girl (Anna Kendrick) who is about to be outfitted with a pair of golden slippers, are all about to cross paths with the baker and his wife - and each other. Of course, Jack has to contend with his frustrated mother (Tracey Ullman) and eventually a very large man who lives in the clouds but is a mere beanstalk climb away. Little Red Riding Hood has to deal with a hungry and lecherous wolf (Johnny Depp) whom she encounters on her way to the tree-house of her grandmother (Annette Crosbie). Rapunzel is torn between the woman who placed her in that tower and an otherwise charming prince (Billy Magnussen) who keeps pulling her hair. Meanwhile, Cinderella has to suffer the likes of a wicked step-mother (Christine Baranski) and two cruel step-sisters (Tammy Blanchard and Lucy Punch) while a handsome prince (Chris Pine) is waiting in the wings to rescue her from all that. What follows is a delightful musical journey as all these characters deal with their own individual challenges and stumble through a series of chance encounters and misadventures. It all comes together nicely into a typical fairy tale happy ending, that is, until...

Act Two: The kingdom is shaken by what everyone believes is an earthquake, but turns out to be another giant - the widow of the giant that Jack killed. The lady giant has climbed down another beanstalk and she's out for blood. The disturbance brings an abrupt end to the dual royal nuptials and sends the main characters all scrambling - you guessed it - back into the woods. But far more than merely a tale of survival (and tough decisions especially relevant in the post-911 world), the rest of the film sees the characters interact in completely new ways as they face the consequences of their earlier choices and learn to "be careful what you wish for." Several main characters do not survive these new challenges, but those who do learn some valuable lessons, or at least they sing that they do. All this amounts to a lengthy epilogue that the Brothers Grimm would not recognize, but remains true to the spirit of their original stories, give or take some more modern sensibilities.

"Into the Woods" is creative, fun and very well-done - up to a point. The story contains just the right amount of whimsy to balance out its inherent darkness (a movie for small children this is not), but a little too much of a good thing takes some of the fun out of it. The songs are too many (50 in all) and some of them go on too long, but the real problem is the post-wedding adventures. While the idea of seeing whether these well-known characters end up happy with the results of their choices is an intriguing one, it simply drags on too long. Streamlining the buildup to the initial happy ending might have helped, but either way you end up basically watching two movies - and it feels like it. As great as some of the songs play out (e.g. the "Into the Woods" prologue and Act Two's "Your Fault") or are necessary to move the plot along (such as "It Takes Two" and "On the Steps of the Palace"), there are also many which could have been shortened or eliminated with no loss to the story. What would definitely be a loss, however, is losing any of the characters in the film. The Mysterious Man, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (all from the original stage version) do not appear, but all those who play a role in this cinematic musical saga make significant contributions and, with maybe one or two exceptions are exceptionally well cast. Especially worthy of note is Streep, who, as expected, shines as the witch, Kendrick, who is all earthy charm as Cinderella, while Blunt and Corden make a great pair. "Into the Woods" isn't perfect, but it's a journey I'm glad I took. "A-".