Starring: James Corden, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt
Once upon a time in a magical kingdom, a baker (Corden) and
a local woman (Blunt) wanted a baby but couldn’t have one. Not until one day
when a hideous witch (Streep) arrived at their door and offered them the chance
to have a child if she fetched for her four items to break the curse that
turned her ugly.
Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical Into The Woods is far from
his most famous works (at least in the UK) so given its age and lack of infamy,
this new Disney film comes across as something of an oddity. Why does it exist?
Why has it been made now? How does this stand in comparison with Disney’s other
work in terms of themes and ideas? It’s a puzzle. It’s a puzzle that doesn’t
provide a wholly finished product answer but it also at times impresses and
even delights in its telling…perhaps a little too much.
In The Woods is a very visually-oriented film that shows
Disney continuing down a path of darker re-evaluations of their work,
previously seen in Alice In Wonderland (2010) and last year’s Maleficent. For
the first time however, Disney seem to have gotten the tone right. The film isn’t
particularly more “mature” than everything before it, rather it seems to
combine somewhat weighty material for Disney around a fanciful story, like the
best fairy tales do. As the film turns its hand to various interwoven stories
(Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Jack And The Beanstalk) the tales
are given twists. Some still remain fairly conventional such as Rapunzel and a
slightly more violent spin on Cinderella; is it coincidence that Disney has
previously adapted those stories with Rapunzel-based film Tangled (2011) and a Cinderella
adaptation from 1950 as well as another later this year.
However, the Jack And The Beanstalk portion of the film
still falls even further back on the fairy tale’s roots (pun…sort of intended)
and Little Red Riding Hood really goes for the jugular. The film-makers
apparently wanted to obscure the paedophilic overtones from the original
musical. They failed. What results is one of the most bafflingly sort of “adult”
moments I’ve seen Disney give and actually pull it off even if they didn’t
intend to. Perhaps this is because the original tale is heavy on the same
themes and it brings comparisons with Company Of Wolves (1984) a film that centres
on that aspect of Red Riding Hood.
The very real problem with Into The Woods is not style over
substance but style overpowering substance. The film is so overtly visual that
it makes the story hard to follow not helped by the rather haphazard
structuring. Throughout the film there’s a constant sense of desperation to
keep up with the story and always feeling a few steps behind. It’s a shame
because whilst the film is two hours long (pretty lengthy by Disney standards)
there’s a feeling that more could be explored with the characters who are
played largely likably. Some of the casting choices are a bit unusual but
ultimately work well with brunette Anna Kendrick being an unusual choice for
the traditionally blonde Cinderella and some such as Chris Pine’s Prince
Charming or Johnny Depp’s brief appearance of the predatory wolf seem
absolutely tailor-made. In her screen debut, a very perky Lilla Crawford is
also enjoyable as Red Riding Hood with her performance and especially singing voice being a little
too theatrical, which I think (or want to think) is intentional.
Meryl Streep is, as always, a force of nature on a seemingly
literal level as the witch. Arguably the most respected film actress of the
modern age, here Streep is in full-on hammy panto mode. It’s a ludicrous
performance that lacks subtlety. One thinks she could do better, but she’s still
fun to watch all the same. James Corden isn’t at his best here, opting to
showcase his more dramatic inclinations rather than what he’s honed as a comedy
actor. I’ve not always been fond of James Corden’s work, but I do think he’s
talented and I’m happy that he seems to be breaking into the American market,
but this is not a great show for him.
It surprises me that Into The Woods has been as a big a hit
as it has. Made at a time when fairy tale deconstruction was still novel (the
musical debuted in 1987, the same year The Princess Bride was released
theatrically) it could’ve floundered in this post-Shrek period where it’s
almost expected for fairy tales to get an ironic wink. It’s far from perfect
but the talent involved at least sees the film through to being worthwhile.
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