Into the Woods
by James Lapine
Into the Woods is the film version of the iconic Broadway musical written by Stephen Sondheim. The film adaptation has flawless casting. It’s delightful to have a modern film musical with actors who can actually sing at a professional level. The music and lyrics are impeccable. The story has been pretty watered down for film, though, and the result is a little more bland than I would have liked.
In the story, an assortment of fairytale characters who live on the edges of a vast and terrifying forest head into the the woods to make their wishes come true. Cinderella goes to her mother’s grave, where she makes a wish to go to the festival. Jack’s mother, who “wishes for a lot of things,” sends Jack into the woods to steal a cow so that they will not starve. Little Red Riding Hood is on her way to Granny’s house.
The Baker and His Wife have a wish too – they wish for a child. It turns out that long ago, the Baker’s father stole greens and magic beans from the Witch’s garden. In revenge for the Baker stealing the greens, the Witch took the Baker’s sister, Rapunzel, and she’s raising Rapunzel in a tower in the woods. She also cursed the Baker’s father to have a barren family tree. She promises to reverse the curse if The Baker and his Wife bring her four items (the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and a shoe as pure as gold). They head into the woods to find the stuff, and all of the fairytales trip over each other (sometimes literally) with hilarious and heartbreaking results.
The first half of the story is a charming mashup of fairytales culminating in happy endings for everyone, more or less. Things get much more dark during the second half, when two things become apparent to the characters. The first thing is that that no one is satisfied with the outcome of their wish. The second is that all these wishes have had consequences. As a result of many, many choices made by many, many people, Jack slayed a giant, and the giant’s wife wants revenge. The story has a lot of humor (“I was raised to be charming, not sincere!”) clever wordplay (“We’ve no time to sit and dither, while her withers wither with her!”) and pathos (seriously, the song “Stay With Me” makes me all sniffly).
By far the best part of the film is the music, lyrics, and acting. It’s such an immense pleasure to see a modern musical in which the actors can actually sing. Even Meryl Streep, whose singing in Mamma Mia was more notable for enthusiasm than anything else, sounds wonderful. Sondheim writes stuff that is very challenging technically so it’s exciting when people handle it so adroitly and with good acting to match.
I’ve seen the stage version years ago but I’d forgotten most of it, so the film was almost fresh for me. Even though I couldn’t remember much from the stage version, I certainly missed the intermission. I don’t mean that the best part of the play was the lobby. I mean that for Act II to work, there has to have been some time between Act II and Act I. In the film version, there’s no pause at all. The giant shows up on Cinderella’s wedding day, right after the Baker’s baby is born (it’s a magical pregnancy so everything happens pretty much instantly). The whole point of Act II is that everyone’s pursuit of a wish had consequences, and that no one is satisfied with their wish. But we don’t see much of the disillusionment part, just the consequences part. So when characters do sing about not being happy with the outcome of their wishes, it seems really abrupt and without context.
In terms of other changes, the movie works, but it is definitely Into the Woods-Lite. It’s not so light that it lacks emotional impact – I still teared up at “No One is Alone” and “Stay With Me.” It’s not as hard-hitting as the play but it still has a surprisingly high death count by the end. If you plan on taking kids, be aware that there is no gore, although gory things are discussed. Everything gory or violent happens just offscreen.
The film is big on morals: be careful what you say to kids because they pay attention, be careful what you wish for, be responsible, and (my favorite) “Nice is different than good.” In fact, I would say that last moral sums up the movie quite well. The movie is nice. It was highly enjoyable, especially the opening sequence. But it’s not as good as it could have been if it hadn’t tiptoed around it’s own material. It’s a solid B movie that should have been an A.
Into the Woods is in theatres now, and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.
I went and saw this with my roommate, and I went into it not knowing a damn thing. My roommate however loves the crap out of the stage version. Anyway, I was giving him some major side-eye during the Wolf’s creepy song. I may have harshly whispered, “Ben, what the hell did you take me to see?” But overall, I liked it. There were some abrupt moments, but I was told those same moments are exactly what happens in the stage production.
Thank you for the review, Carrie! My husband and I are big fans of the stage version (have CDs of both the original Broadway and West End versions, and a DVD of the Broadway show as televised on PBS). We’d heard that this was a cleaned up version (SPOILER: Rapunzel lives!) As much as I would love to see Meryl Streep and the others, I couldn’t quite convince us to go watch this. Well, maybe when it hits Per Per View…..
I cannot express how much I love the stage play (I was in it once, too, as Cinderella’s mother in the tree and Sleeping Beauty’s small cameo). I was seriously thinking about going to see it because it looks visually stunning but after hearing about a lot of the changes I just can’t do it… the trailers showed me enough of things that make me cringe already, such as no Narrator and Jack being an actual child. I’ll probably wait for it to hit RedBox so if I have to scream at it I can without fear of being ejected from the theater.
Big Into the Woods fan here, and I agree wholeheartedly with this review (I love how often I agree with the Bitchery. ;)). I really enjoyed it, but couldn’t give it an unqualified pass. I was okay with many of the changes based on what they needed to do to make it work on screen, and I eventually forgave Meryl Streep for not being Bernadette Peters 😉 (though I actually felt her acting was a bit TOO understated…to misquote a friend misquoting somebody else, “He played the king as though he was afraid somebody was going to play the ace.” But overall it was a…nice…adaptation. Major highlights: “Agony” on the waterfall (Oh my God Chris Pine I love you) and Emily Blunt.
However, one major quibble as a theatre veteran: IMHO, there wasn’t a single legitimate, decent soprano in the entire production (Anna Kendrick was ok but thin; Rapunzel’s voice made me want to jump off a bridge, the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to feel). Most of the parts had been transposed down into comfortable vocal ranges for the big-name actors they’d cast, rather than being able to cast actors who could sing the parts as written (a luxury I fully understand they didn’t have.) I do feel that the music suffered and lost a lot of its power by being sort of “smoothed out” in this way.
Final verdict: I’d rather have this adaptation than none at all. I’ll definitely buy the DVD so I can listen to it on my headphones.
Very apt review. It’s like you’re thinking my thoughts, of which I have many. Being familiar with the stage version, my mind filled in the gaps quite nicely, but my unfamiliar-with-the-show friend threw out a few ‘what the hell?’ statements that completely coincided with those watered down parts (especially about Rapunzel) and the missing intermission. I really, really, REALLY missed the ‘Agony’ reprise! (Editorial note: Jack was sent to sell the cow, not to steal one.)
@Amanda – That was one of the bigger ‘watered down’ parts, since on stage Red Riding Hood is not a child but a teenager/young woman, and the scene is totally flirty. Also, the Wolf is costumed with an ‘enhanced package’ – if you get my drift. Red’s ‘I know things now’ song is in a completely different light in the stage version. Unfortunately, having a younger Red in the movie made the Wolf just seem pervy, rather than bawdy. Yes, the latter is better. 🙂
One of my favorite parts was Lucy Punch as one of the stepsisters. how many times has she played that role? But she’s just perfect
@Maray: according to Tumblr, four.
Chris Pine was a DELIGHT. I want him in more comedy.
Hit the nail on the head with the major problem I had with the film. There really needs to be the disillusionment for the second act to work. Not to mention the way they completely gutted the Witch’s arc. I get why they did what they did with Rapunzel’s storyline, but the end result is a Witch who isn’t good or nice OR right.
Come on, Disney. If you didn’t want moral ambiguity, you shouldn’t have done Sondheim.