Into The Woods

Film (2014)
Based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

With Anna Kendrick (Cinderella), Daniel Huttlestone (Jack), James Corden (Baker), Emily Blunt (Baker’s Wife), Christine Baranski (Stepmother), Tammy Blanchard (Florinda), Lucy Punch (Lucinda), Tracey Ullman (Jack’s Mother), Lilla Crawford (Little Red Riding Hood), Meryl Streep (Witch), Johnny Depp (Wolf), Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel’s Prince), Mackenzie Mauzy (Rapunzel), Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince)

What is the witch from Jack and the Beanstalk doing harassing Rapunzel, and what has Little Red Riding Hood got to do with Cinderella? Well, in Sondheimland, they come together, as do their tales, and, in the end, it all makes perfect sense. The first part of the musical is a dreamy amalgamation of individual fairy tale fates as they weave into one another. The second part is an existential whittling of those fates, yielding something austere and remarkably human.

This is Sondheim at his magical best and the adaptation for the screen, seen through by James Lapine who wrote the original book of the play, is real genius. This is one musical that comes across even better on screen than it does onstage, and there are very few cases of that. Somehow the magical landscape holds the story, and the special effects provide enough cinemagic to keep one’s attention, while the wit of the lyrics and the innovations of the music are never obscured.

This production is funny. The audience laughed repeatedly at both the lyrics, which are mercilessly witty, and at the characterizations of the actors, which are frequently hysterical. Agony, the duo of the two prince charmings – played by Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel’s Prince) and Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince) – is particularly funny, and here it is done wonderfully well with both of the slightly too pretty princes dancing around a waterfall and tearing open their shirts. Little Red Riding Hood stuffs her mouth with goodies from the Baker and his Wife as she makes it out the door to see her Grandmama, while Sondheim’s limpid lyrics fall out as she presses the baked treats in.

The cast is marvelous. Meryl Streep plays the all-purpose witch and she’s masterfully awful and grandiloquently magisterial at turns. Emily Blunt is at her best here. She is lovely, charming and engaging as the Baker’s Wife and she plays well with James Corden (The Baker) who gives an effectively earnest portrayal. Johnny Depp has a quick turn as the Wolf who eats Little Red Riding Hood and he does a fine job, as charmingly malevolent as he can so persuasively be. Anna Kendrick is a strong Cinderella, carrying both sides of the kingdom with dignity and yielding a conclusion that makes sense. The two aforementioned princes are dashingly foolish enough to hover on the edge of fairy-taleness, and the two kids who play Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) and Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) are funny, sharp, and charming, carrying a lot of screen time on their own.

I didn’t remember all the wit in Sondheim’s lyrics, and wonder if some of it was adapted for this screen version. Whatever the case, it’s a marvel, and, with Lapine’s adjustment of the script, it makes for a fabulous mix.

Somehow, this screen version makes the whole piece fit together even better than it has when I have seen it on the stage. The productions I saw were very good, but here there is something so coherent to the story as it is told here and memorable about this rendition that it is particularly noteworthy.

Traditionally, the stage version of Into The Woods comes in two varieties, the original, full-length one with the existential second act and a one-act version, basically trimmed down to the first fairy-taleish part which is geared to children’s theater. The film version falls in the first camp, and though it’s magical, it is also a tale that brings magic and imagination down to earth, and certainly geared to the tastes and expectations of adults.

– BADMan