MOVIE REVIEW - INTO THE WOODS

AND…OUT

Into the Woods

**

Review by Paul Preston

(SPOILERS ABOUND – DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE FILM OR STAGE MUSICAL)

STORYTELLER: And now, the story of “Into the Woods”, the re-imagining of famous fairy tales by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, directed by Rob Marshall.

PAUL: Oh, I like Rob Marshall. Wait, this is a musical, right?

STORYTELLER: Yes.

PAUL: OK, then, yes, I like Rob Marshall!

STORYTELLER: “Into the Woods” brings together famous fairy tale characters like Little Red Riding Hood…

PAUL: Sweet.

STORYTELLER: Cinderella…

PAUL: Awesome.

STORYTELLER: Prince Charming…

PAUL: Excellent.

STORYTELLER: And The Baker and his wife.

PAUL: Who?

STORYTELLER: Just go with me. The Baker has had a spell put on his bloodline to where he and his wife will find themselves barren. This spell was cast by an evil witch, due to the nefarious actions of The Baker’s father.

PAUL: Who plays The Witch?

STORYTELLER: Meryl Streep.

PAUL: I’m IN. Here’s the deal, when you live in the same era as someone as ridiculously talented and consistently good as Meryl Streep, you really should see EVERYTHING she does. You wouldn’t want to live in the 1590s and not see one of Shakespeare’s plays. In fact, why haven’t I seen “The Giver” yet? I know it’s not supposed to be very good, but I bet you Meryl is fantastic in it.

STORYTELLER: Wait, let’s stay focused on “Into the Woods”. Here, watch a clip of The Witch’s opening song, where she explains the curse.

(PAUL & THE STORYTELLER WATCH SAID CLIP)

PAUL: Damn, that was awesome! That Meryl Streep mines such comedy out of the smallest moments. Every lyric has a specific attitude that can shift from stanza to stanza, she’s amazing.

STORYTELLER: Elsewhere in the plot, The Big, Bad Wolf is stalking Little Red Riding Hood. He’s played by Johnny Depp:

PAUL: Wait, are you showing me the stage play now?

STORYTELLER: No, this is him in the movie.

PAUL: But he’s not even remotely a Big, Bad Wolf. He looks like he’s in a Tex Avery cartoon.

STORYTELLER: He’s a wolf. See the ears?

PAUL: Barely, I can’t believe Little Red Riding Hood would call those “big”? Forgive me, I’m just a little shocked ‘cause I know that on stage, you can’t have a real wolf, just as you can’t have a real giant or real birds who do Cinderella’s bidding. But in the film, we have a real giant and real birds, why can’t we make the wolf look more like a wolf? At least like this:

STORYTELLER: …..

PAUL: …..

STORYTELLER: Maybe they just want you to know that it’s Johnny Depp…

PAUL: …at a jump swing joint. I assume he has a big dance number in that zoot suit?

STORYTELLER: A song, actually – “Hello, Little Girl”. Let’s watch.

(PAUL & THE STORYTELLER WATCH SAID CLIP)

(THEN A LONG PAUSE)

PAUL: Uuuuuuuuncomfortable.

STORYTELLER: So, you don’t like that, either.

PAUL: No, I dig Johnny Depp all “rapey”, but maybe at 51 it’s time to start going by “John”.

STORYTELLER: There’s one more storyline, Cinderella getting the chance to go to the royal ball to meet the Prince.

PAUL: Because of her Fairy Godmother, right?

STORYTELLER: Well, it’s her actual mother, whose ghost lives in a tree.

PAUL: And they give “Exodus: Gods and Kings” a hard time for changing things.

STORYTELLER: She eventually flees the pursuit of the handsome prince after attending the ball for three nights.

PAUL: Why?

STORYTELLER: Why what?

PAUL: Why does she run from the Prince? Seems like everything she wants – a new life, a love, a future could be provided by him.

STORYTELLER: ….

PAUL: ….

STORYTELLER: She just does. And she meets up with The Baker and his Wife, Red and Jack in the woods.

PAUL: Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk?

STORYTELLER: Yes, he’s played by Daniel Huttlestone, who played the young Cockney boy Gavroche in “Les Misérables”.

PAUL: Didn’t “Les Misérables” take place in Franc—

STORYTELLER: He climbs a beanstalk and steals from a Giant and then wonders why The Giant would be upset about it.

PAUL: Does The Giant get his due revenge over the thief? There’s your movie, sort of a fairy tale “John Wick”.

STORYTELLER: No, he dies.

PAUL: Well, at least I know who I’ll have sympathy for in the movie.

STORYTELLER: You’ll have sympathy for The Baker’s Wife, then. She dies, too.

PAUL: What did she do to deserve death?

STORYTELLER: She cheated on The Baker with The Prince. It also wrecks Cinderella’s marriage to The Prince.

PAUL: Well, you shouldn’t sleep around on your husband.

STORYTELLER: Technically, she only kissed him.

PAUL: And got DEATH for it? I don’t understand why these horrible things are happening to these characters. Do they have to learn some kind of lesson? The Baker must’ve been a real jerk, right?

STORYTELLER: No, he’s a pretty straight-forward, honest, hard-working individual. Although he did lie to young Jack when he traded Jack’s cow for magic beans.

PAUL: So his wife should DIE? Jesus, and I thought “Gone Girl” was the feel-bad movie of the year.

STORYTELLER: But, look, here’s the point, “Happily Ever After” only lasts so long.

PAUL: And then death, it seems. So what happens to The Witch? Does she redeem herself or stay evil to the end and get vanquished by the rest of the characters?

STORYTELLER: We don’t know. She’s blamed for all the bad things that happen, then she sings a song called “The Last Midnight”.

PAUL: Because it’s the last midnight that Cinderella is with The Prince?

STORYTELLER: No, that was earlier in the film.

PAUL: Oh, is it the last midnight of the curse that The Witch has placed on The Baker?

STORYTELLER: No, that ended earlier, too. She sings this as she is sucked into a mud puddle in the woods.

PAUL: Why?

STORYTELLER: ….

PAUL: ….

STORYTELLER: ….

PAUL: ….I wish someone would come along at the end of the film and explain everything for me.

STORYTELLER:…well…they had that…then he was cut.

PAUL: (sigh)