Review: Into the Woods
Be careful what you wish for, the old saying goes, a warning that could serve as a counterpoint to Disney's "Anything your heart desires / Will come to you." It seems a rather curious pairing then to have the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods under the Disney aegis. It's a dark and thorny piece where wish fulfillment comes with unforeseen consequences, its cold comfort not exactly trumpeting the happily ever afters espoused by the Magic Kingdom.
"I wish" is the mantra taken up by the musical's characters, most of whom were culled from various fairy tales. Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wishes to go to the King's Festival, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) wishes his cow would give milk and, more than anything, the baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) wish to have a child. The old witch (Meryl Streep) next door informs the couple of a curse she placed on the baker years ago - because his father stole magic beans from her garden, she stole his daughter Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and ensured the baker would never have a child. Yet she can reverse the curse if the baker and his wife can bring her the following ingredients within the next 72 hours: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold.
Into the woods they go as do Jack, tasked by his mother (Tracey Ullman) to sell his cherished cow, and Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) who's on her way to grandmother's house. All believe their journey to be relatively straightforward ("The way is clear / The light is good / I have no fear / Nor no one should"), but the woods are not just trees but rather a crucible for all involved. The baker and his wife learn to work together ("But what needs to be done / You can do / When there's two of you"); Jack realises people don't always keep their promises; and Red, after surviving being devoured by the wolf (Johnny Depp), reflects upon the terror and excitement of her experience ("Isn't it nice to know a lot! / And a little bit not…").
Meanwhile, Cinderella's ambivalence and indecisiveness about her prince (Chris Pine) leads her to leave the decision of her fate in his hands ("You know what your decision is / Which is not to decide / You'll leave him a clue / For example, a shoe / And then see what he'll do"). The prince and his brother (Billy Magnussen), who is in love with Rapunzel, bemoan their romantic plights, competing with one another as to which love is more unobtainable ("Agony! / Far more powerful than yours / When you know she would go with you / If there only were doors"). The witch, upon discovering the prince has been visiting Rapunzel, entreats her to remain in the safety of the tower, where she can be protected from the pain and heartbreak the outside world offers ("Stay a child while you can be a child"). By the end of the first half, everyone appears to have their wish granted in one form or another. Then the second half begins and they realize that it's one thing to wish, it's quite another to have.
Into the Woods is a solid, relatively faithful piece of entertainment with Streep, Kendrick, and particularly Blunt distinguishing themselves from the uniformly strong cast. Yet the film is also problematic, with a second half weakened by elements either truncated or completely omitted. At least nine months pass between the end of the first act and the beginning of the second act, but it seems only a month in the film. That temporal passage is crucial - the characters have their supposed happy endings, but they're still wishing. Their emotional instability is key when they're all forced back in the woods, the return a far grimmer happenstance than the initial journey.
The arcs of the baker and Cinderella's prince are especially stunted by the compression. The baker has the son he so desired but fatherhood does not come so naturally. Both princes have grown restless with their wives and have set their sights on two slumbering maidens, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty - this vital turn of events is nowhere to be found in the film. The prince's infidelity is mentioned - again, given the shortened timeline, it seems the prince was already cheating on Cinderella on their wedding day - but the power of his beautiful line "I was raised to be charming, not sincere" loses some of its bite.
Elsewhere, Rob Marshall's direction is frenzied; the pacing of this film steamrolls over the subtlety in Sondheim's lyrics as well as the lovely comic beats (Cinderella's "That makes no sense" or the baker's wife "I'm in the wrong story" don't get the laughs they deserve). Whilst the gist of the themes - growing up, accepting responsibility, parent-child relationships - are intact, the resonance is shamefully diminished.
Into the Woods
Directed by: Rob Marshall
Written by: James Lapine; adapted from the musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim
Starring: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Daniel Huttlestone, Lilla Crawford, Billy Magnussen, Mackenzie Mauzy, Christine Baranski, Tammy Blanchard, Lucy Punch, Simon Russell Beale, Frances de la Tour
