Into the Woods

Released:  December 25^th, 2014

Rated:  PG

Studio:  Walt Disney Studios

Starring:  Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Johnny Depp

Directed by:  Rob Marshall

Written by:  James Lapine

Personal Bias Alert:  not familiar with the play, have seen twisted fairy tales many times

4.5 of 10

            Between the singing, the never-ending story, and the kid with the cockney accent I felt like I was having a flashback to last year’s Les Misérables.  The kid is in fact the same actor, Daniel Huttlestone, here playing Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk.  If you don’t already know, Into the Woods features a mashup of various Brothers Grimm fairy tale characters, something that was perhaps more inventive when the musical came out in 1986 but is now nothing to write home about.  Still, the movie does feature an impressive cast, most of whom we already know can sing.  Sondheim also has a certain clout, so I went in hoping this would be an enjoyable family film.

            Let’s get the obvious out of the way first:  all the actors pull off their parts.  There’s some variation as to how well they pull them off, but no one grinds things to a halt.  Emily Blunt and James Corden as the only original characters (a baker and his wife) are great together, a one-two punch of comedy, musical chops, and general affability that provides a solid anchor.  If the film had focused on this pair’s search for the four ingredients the witch needs to grant them a child, I would’ve been a happy camper.

            But alas, the film has some larger statements in mind, so we get meandering offshoots about Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), and Jack.  Did I miss anyone?  I may have missed someone.  Anyway, there’s a lot of side characters, most of whose storylines are pretty basic but feature big musical numbers that many in my theater reacted to like they were showstoppers (The princes’ Agony earned particularly big applause).  I was less impressed than my fellow Christmas morning moviegoers, finding Into the Wood’s brand of fairy tale skewering quaintly old hat and being more than a little thrown off by Sondheim’s wordy lyrics.

            Now, admittedly, these are all inherited problems from the musical, but what I was particularly unimpressed by was the translation into film.  I feel like there was a great opportunity to open this thing up, to really explore the titular woods and have some fun with the more fantastical elements, but it’s all left fairly monochromatic.  The big set pieces seem to always be just off-frame, an element that’s necessary in a play but frustrating in a movie.  However, the most troubling symptom of this is the woods itself.  It lacks any sense of personality or menace.  It’s just a jumble of trees that everyone seems to be walking through or talking about all the time.  Why everyone’s so concerned about it I don’t know because nothing very bad seems to happen there, at least nothing that the woods should be get credit for.

            By the time the bad things do start happening to people, it’s pretty clear that most of it is the character’s own fault.  It’s generally attributable to some underlying fault in the fairy tale, a twisted take on something you’re supposed to find Charming (Prince Charming, get it?  Hooray puns.).  The problem is that most of the things Into the Woods points out is incredibly basic, lacking any real bite for an adult audience.  It’s my understanding that the film is a watered-down version of the musical, which leaves me wondering why they would tone it down so much.  Wouldn’t a PG-13 interpretation allow them to keep more of the material that made the musical a hit while still reaching a wide audience?

            Luckily, many of the one-liners still worked and had me belly-laughing from time to time.  I wasn’t blind to the sarcasm underlying all this, it just wasn’t very well sustained.  I had to sit through long, boring periods before it shone through in a wittily sardonic line or at least a pleasant scene between Blunt and Corden.  These bright spots just didn’t add up to a complete product and only served to make the whole thing seem even more dull and drawn-out than it really was.

            Other Notes:

Ø  There was about 20 minutes in the middle where I was totally into it.  For the rest of the time it barely held my attention.

Ø  See, prerecording the songs works just fine.

Ø  Was the Rapunzel/prince storyline really necessary?  I feel like that’s an easy thing to cut out.

Ø  Why can’t you just have a wolf?  Why do you need Johnny Depp dressed up as a wolf?  And of course it’s Johnny Depp dressed up as the wolf.