Into the woods
Director: Rob Marshall
Cast: Anna Kendrick , Meryl Streep , James Corden , Emily Blunt , Daniel Huttlestone , Tracy Ulman , Johnny
Depp , Billy
Magnussen , Mackenzie
Mauzy , Lilla
Crawford , Chris Pine
Released:
24th December 2014
The acclaimed stage production about wish fulfilment in fairytales gets
the big screen treatment by Rob Marshall. Marshall, no stranger to musicals, having directed several, including Annie (1999) and Chicago (2002), brings together
well-known musical actors Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick and Johnny Depp, with
lesser-known (but still surprisingly good) talents James Corden, Emily Blunt
and Chris Pine. Into the Woods is an
interesting fairytale adventure, weaving the stories of Rapunzel, Cinderella,
Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk into the main storyline of a
lowly baker and his wife, who are on a quest to remove a curse. Fascinating
themes of parenthood, responsibility, and the moral consequences of getting
what you wish for are nicely touched on throughout the film.
The musical genre is filled with “themed” films: Hairspray touched on the sixties; Mama Mia involved Abba songs, and Chicago was set in the roaring 20s. Into the Woods remains true to its Broadway roots with a lot of the
dialogue and monologues being delivered in song, for example, the opening number
'Prologue: Into the Woods'. While most of the songs don't have very individual sounds, there are a few standouts. In 'Hello little girl' Depp is mesmerising as the Big
Bad Wolf and gives the scene a Sweeney Todd level of creepiness as he tries to
lure Little Red Riding Hood away from the trail. Pine and Magnussen liven
things up with 'Agony', evoking a feeling of the over-the-top nature of drunken
Karaoke with mates. Meryl Streep chills with her crazed, psychotic witch but reveals
a tender, motherly side with 'Stay with me'.
Like book-to-screen adaptations, cinematic versions of stage shows
can't always translate word for word (or song for song in musicals). There will always be a need for some changes in order to translate well with the
audience. Grease changed some of
their songs to be more up-tempo such as 'You're the One That I Want', which
consequently made it one of the most loved soundtracks of all time. On the
other side of the spectrum are those films in which nothing is altered from the
original production, as was the case in the film adaptation of Rent (2002),
which kept the cast members from the original Broadway production of 1996. The
film lacked the energy of a live audience, and it didn't help that the stars
had aged from when they originally played those characters.
Though for the most part, Into the
Woods stays true to the stage production, due to the condensed running time
of the film, minor characters’ storylines are shortened, such as Rapunzel's
story where the maddening effect of being brought up in a tower is not touched on
at all. Similarly, the baker's father’s role as a guide is diluted to just a
flashback and an Obi-Wan's-ghost-type moment, while the caddish behaviour of
the princes is also toned down considerably, with only one of the two actually
being depicted as a Lothario. Being a Disney movie, it doesn’t seem all that
surprising that some of the darker aspects of the story are swept under the
rug, but the result is that the second half of the film leaves characters
unfinished and somewhat untouched by the consequences of their actions.
While it is interesting to see a darker, more ‘adult’ version of a
fairytale musical, it is still a little innocent in its Disney-fied take on the
production. Whereas the first act is engaging and entertaining in its songs and
energy, the second act, exploring the cost of getting exactly what you wish for,
falls a little flat, with character development not quite hitting the moral tone
evenly across the field.
2 ½ stars.