Review: Into the Woods

To tell you the truth, before Into The Woods was released, I was really looking forward to watching it. I mean they have big names like Meryl Streep and Johny Depp, and plus those of you who were into theatre, I am sure you’d have heard of how brilliant the storyline is and as a musical, it will simply take your breath away. So, there is hardly anything that could have gone wrong in the movie, right? WRONG!

Here are the two biggest complaints I hear: 1) It’s too long. 2)  It's too short.  (They cut stuff out.)

Several songs from the musical were absent from the movie (notably the reprise of “Agony”) but a Broadway production can last 2 ½ hours or more. And there’s an intermission. Gone are the days that a motion picture features an intermission. (Gone with the wind) So trims had to be made. Composer Stephen Sondheim wrote an original song for the movie and even that got tossed. There goes the Oscar.

The length issue usually stems from the second act suddenly turning very dark. If you’re not on board with that creative choice you’re in for a squirmy forty minutes.

SIDEBAR: In the musical, act one ends with everyone seemingly living happily ever after. Act two spins all that on its ear. When the musical was first tried out in San Diego, people thought the end of the first act was the end of the show. Sondheim himself had to go out to the parking lot every night and tell people to come back, there was more.

Sondheim’s music is intricate and I have to say that for me, personally, there are times when I’m awestruck by his work and other times I want to yell at the stage or screen “Stop trying to be so fucking cute and clever!” And then a song like “No One Is Alone” comes along and he tears my heart out.

The other concern I always have going into film adaptations of musicals is how weird it sounds when people on screen just break into song. On the stage there is a certain theatricality that allows you to buy it, but the harsh reality of being in the real world in movies often turns the film into COP ROCK. The badass Sharks and Jets singing show tunes and pirouetting in WEST SIDE STORY looked ridiculous.

There's also lot going on for a 125 minute film and it hurts the film in the character development department. You never truly understand the motives of some characters and it becomes problematic at a point. The second act was also pretty dicey in my opinion. Some interesting things happen, but it's a jarring shift of tone and pace that will likely leave audiences puzzled. The twist that the film takes about half-way is good, but it leads to a second act that feels anti-climatic, bland and not all that satisfying.

Into the Woods mocks the idea of a happy ending with a last-minute twist just when everything seems to be ending well. I liked the idea of that, but I didn't like the direction that the film took after that. It's devoid of all the fun of the first act and the darkness isn't exactly that appealing. Everything happens so suddenly and so quickly that I wasn't even sure what the film was trying to say. I was never bored, but I found the second act to be troubling and I thought that the film's climax was completely unsatisfying.

This is definitely a movie that I will remember for all the wrong reasons.