Last week, I got a little breathing room from mommy duties, with my cousin's wife in town to help my mom move around. I'd get pockets of time that ranged between 10 to 30 minutes, so I could work on different chores that I couldn't normally do if the jellybean was with me.
In the spirit of multi-tasking, I decided to watch something at the same time and without having to worry about waking up a baby, I chose the musical Into the Woods. It did take me about four days to finish watching the movie, but hey, I'll take what I can get.
A Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt) have long wished to have a child of their own. To their dismay, the Witch (Meryl Streep) next door tells them that the reason for their lack of children is because she placed a curse on their house after the Baker's father stole beans from her garden because of his mother's pregnancy cravings. Aside from placing the curse, the Witch also stole the Baker's sister, never to be seen by their family again. The Witch tells them that she will undo the curse if they are able to collect four things before midnight in three days time. The Baker sets off into the woods to find a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and slipper as pure as gold. In the woods, the Baker and his wife encounter Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) on the way to her grandmother's, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) who needs to sell his beloved cow Milky White, Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy) in her tower where the Witch imprisons her, and Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) who wishes to go to the festival.
There was a lot of buzz regarding Into the Woods prior to its cinematic release last year. Aside from the fact that it was adapted from the award-winning Broadway musical, it also gained a lot of attention for the stellar cast they were able to assemble for the film. With at least five fairy tales covered in the film, the cast was bound to be a large one, and the fun additions of Chris Pine as the Prince, Billy Magnussen as the Other Prince, Johnny Depp as the Big Bad Wolf, and Tracy Ullman as Jack's mother just mean more fun characters to keep up with. What's more, the many fun characters of the film are played by their respective actors with gleeful abandon.
Into the Woods take a frenetic yet still understandable pace in its storytelling, what with all the characters and different fairy tales (all of which overlap courtesy of the items that the Baker and his Wife needed to collect for the Witch). The film covers all the major events that occur in the fairy tales, but opts to let certain scenes happen off-screen and are merely mentioned or recapped by the characters. While this might seem weird for some viewers who are looking forward to watching the major events (Cinderella's dance with the Prince, Rapunzel's first meeting with the Other Prince, Jack's climb up the beanstalk and meeting with the Giants) on screen, considering their importance in the original fairy tales, it highlights the fact that there is a larger story to tell in Into the Woods.
The film isn't just a mere re-telling of old, well-known fairy tales, but is instead a re-imagining of what motivates the characters and what goes through their minds as they experience the events of their individual stories. In Cinderella's venture to the festival, it's not the threat of magically becoming a servant girl at midnight that drove her to run away from the Prince, but is instead worried about her feelings now that she achieved her goal of attending the festival and gaining the attention of the most sought after bachelor in the kingdom. The Baker and his Wife seem to end up arguing about their individual roles in the quest to meet the Witch's demands, despite their shared dream of finally having a child. This particular twist in the storytelling make for more human and relatable characters, especially when the film tackled the consequences of having to deal with the characters' individual "happy endings". As much as the film offered many funny and appropriately campy moments, there's the element of drama that emphasized the more human qualities of its characters, even if they are always on the verge of breaking out into song.
Then, there's the musical element of the film. The songs are memorable and easy on the ears, which is a plus if you've always found yourself puzzled by other musicals that seem to just weave dialouge into song without rhyme (I just don't get it, but then again, I don't watch musical theatre much). With an excellent cast at their disposal, despite their disparate levels of experience when it comes to the musical genre, every song is heartfelt and appropriate to the emotions felt by their characters. Anna Kendrick is always a joy to listen to, but I found my girl crush on Emily Blunt grow all the more with every song she sang. And Chris Pine's turn as the Prince? Well, let's just say I had recollections of my reaction to James Marsden when he appeared in Enchanted and started singing. I didn't know if I was going to swoon or laugh, with both reactions being a good thing.
There's plenty to love about Into the Woods as a film. While I still can't quite make up my mind if it would rank high on my favorite musical films, it's one that I wouldn't mind revisiting when I feel like a musical on movie nights. Especially, if I want to watch something that Emily Blunt is in (though it would probably lose out to Edge of Tomorrow) or just marvel at the wonder that is Chris Pine singing "Agony".
Happy viewing!!Labels: Adaptation, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Film, Into the Woods, Musical, Must-Watch
