Into the Woods opens in UK cinemas on 9 January 2015.
As a longtime Sondheim fan and particular admirer of Into the Woods, the “be careful what you wish for” fantasy musical which the great man teased out of James Lapine’s clever book in 1986, it would be great to be wrong but where’s the audience for Rob Marshall’s film coming from?
The beautiful-to-look-at, brilliantly orchestrated, dazzlingly dressed movie version opens in the USA on Christmas Day and over here on 9 January with a starry cast chosen as much for their marketability as singing skills. But it’s surely more arty than commercial.
And while Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt and Johnny Depp have fan bases that will assuredly put bums on seats, will there be enough to make a worldwide success of it?
With a few reservations, Sondheim aficionados will love it, but as The Stephen Sondheim Society has a bare 700 members after 20 years, that will not rattle the tills at Disney Towers.
Obviously, the names of Streep, Corden and Depp attract trade and as Disney has managed to get a PG certificate as well as a festive release for what becomes a pretty dark trip ‘into the woods’, youngsters may enjoy their first taste of Sondheim without necessarily understanding what the complicated tale is all about.
If it popularises the work of the greatest living composer and lyricist, it will make a lot of people very happy, but it has to be said it is not the easiest Sondheim and takes a fair bit of getting used to: this idea of four Grimm yarns, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel, framed around Lapine’s new element involving a Baker and a Wife cursed with infertility by the Witch who lives next door.
There are all sorts of messages from ‘the woods’ – about greed, power, sexual awakening, the role of women, grief and community, to name but a handful – and it is a brave call to try and simplify it.
Obviously in a film cut to two hours when the video of the original stage show lasts 153 minutes, quite a lot is missing but the only important song I noticed was ‘No More’ which the Baker sings to his Father in Act II. As Act I alone can exceed an hour and a half (and needs to be done well to retain audience interest), Marshall’s reduction will be welcomed in some quarters and is cleverly achieved.
My beef is that much of the humour has been lost. One of the best numbers, ‘Agony’, sung by the two narcissistic Princes, should be an absolute hoot, but failed to elicit a single laugh at the preview I attended, and the hand of Disney is evident in the way the skittish, delightfully amoral seduction by one prince of the surprisingly willing Baker’s Wife has been filleted and toned down.
Some of the best lines are wasted. For example, if Cinderella’s Prince’s response: “I was raised to be charming, not sincere” is delivered right, it is extremely witty in the context of the scene. Yet from the mouth of Chris Pine, dashingly handsome though he is, it falls totally flat.
It’s the same with the scene where the Baker (Corden), in pursuit of Red’s cape, slays the Wolf (Depp) after he’s gobbled up Granny and Little Red and pulls them from his innards back to the land of the living. It should be at the same time funny and slightly frightening but, for me, it was neither.
Special effects, especially the wind machine, make-up (Streep as a rotten-toothed witchy hag is quite a sight) and costumes are all fabulous but a major drawback will be the general public’s unfamiliarity with the songs, plentiful and wonderful though they are to Sondheimites.
We know, from Mamma Mia!, that Streep can sing and her treatments of ‘Last Midnight’ and the achingingly moving ‘Stay With Me’ are standouts. And young Daniel Huttlestone, already a West End veteran after stints in Oliver! and Les Misérables, does a superb job with Jack’s ‘Giants in the Sky’.
But what we didn’t know was what a fine voice Emily Blunt has. She’s a revelation as the Baker’s Wife alongside Corden’s excellent Baker and I see she is already up for a Golden Globe, as is Streep who has a ball with a part she can ham up outrageously and get away with it.
But the rest of the singing is decent rather than outstanding. Anna Kendrick’s rather nasal Cinderella didn’t quite do it for me vocally, nor the strident Red Riding Hood of Lilla Crawford, who played the title role in the 2012 Broadway revival of Annie.
Although it is arguably better sung than Les Misérables, it falls into the same category: spectacular to look at but still not as satisfying as seeing it done well on stage. I love Les Mis but have I looked at the DVD I was given last Christmas? No, seeing it once on the magnificence of the big screen was enough. Yet I could still see it over and over again on stage.
It will be the same with Into the Woods: for all its many and obvious pluses, the movie does not stay in the mind as warmly as a tremendous PPA student production I saw in Guildford a few weeks earlier.
You simply can’t beat good musical theatre, can you?
Jeremy Chapman
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