Into the Woods
(2014)
(SPOILERS) Rob Marshall tackles another musical, with all the acumen he
brought to Chicago. And non-musicals (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides). Sure, he ensures nice
art direction in, but that doesn’t make a good movie. I can’t say I’m hugely au
fait with Stephen Sondheim’s oeuvre (West
Side Story is a classic, obviously, and the Sweeney Todd movie is diverting enough), but if this is evidence of
his musical/storytelling skills he’s rather lacking (does that count as
heresy?) Mash up a few fairy tales (Little
Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk), sprinkle a few variable songs over the
top, and attempt to shoehorn in some kind of message about what happens if you
get all you dreamed of (what a spoilsport).
It’s a tepid affair, with only the occasional vital performance to perk
it up.
There’s no shortage of fairy tale riffs these days, probably
going back to Shrek, and we even had
a Grimm specific piece a decade ago (Terry Gilliam’s ill-fated but sporadically
sparky Brothers Grimm). Disney’s all
over them like a rash; live action, animation, TV series, so it's no wonder they went for this one (eventually). Marshall’s movie
manages to be simultaneously redundant and over-reliant on obvious stunt
casting. Johnny Depp pulls a Brando cameo as a blink and you’ll miss him wolf,
Meryl Streep hams it up rotten as a witch.
The picture particularly crippled by the undesirable
presence of James Corden (thankfully exiling himself across the Pond and into a
chat show) as the Baker/narrator. His voice is woefully ill equipped to introduce
the tale, bereft of the remotest gravitas or garnish. He’s also expecting us to
believe he could possibly be married to Emily Blunt.
Who is quite wonderful. As is Chris Pine, as a pompous
jackass version of Captain Kirk (playing Cinderella’s prince). When these two
share a scene and a song, Into the Woods
momentarily comes alive. This is the only point where one gets the giddy sense
of tales seeping into each other, mayhem unleashed and worlds colliding. Maybe
the incredibly downbeat conclusion had more resonance on the stage (it was
reportedly toned down by Disney to make the picture more family friendly) but
here it just seems unnecessary and harsh in material that is essentially
lightweight and frivolous.
Marshall ought to be able to marshal his great resources, but still
manages to make the entire enterprise seem rather static and lifeless. Once the
great wedding has taken place and the characters are lost in the woods once
again, he envisages the most clueless and uncoordinated of moments; it screams of
its stage origins in a most unflattering manner.
Essentially, others have done this kind of thing, and with
much more verve, wit and lyricism. There’s exactly one song (It’s Your Fault) that gives a hint of
what this might have been; it’s quick, clever and sharp. Elsewhere, there’s
wholly too much of annoying little scamps wailing about beans and granny and the
like. Tangentially, it’s nice to see (even more briefly than Depp) Frances de
la Tour as the Giant’s Wife.
Marshall’s picture was inspired by Obama’s speech on the
tenth anniversary of 9/11 (only in Hollywood, eh?), but you’d be hard pressed
to discern any great transforming and unifying spirit in this anodyne and stillborn
lump. Still, Into the Woods made money,
so it should keep the stage-to-screen gravy train going a few years yet for
Sondheim’s back catalogue.
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