Into the Woods
D: Rob Marshall
W: James Lapine
S: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Johnny Depp
The Tony Award winning Broadway show
Into the Woods by
James Lapine and
Stephen Sondheim goes from the stage to the silver screen. The story takes place in a magical world where almost every fairy tale characters seemed to live and in this magical land lives a baker(future
Late, Late Show Host James Corden), and his wife (Emily Blunt) who wish for nothing more than to have a child but are sadly unable to. That is until their neighbor The Witch (Meryl Streep) pops in a tells them that she placed a curse on their house preventing them to have a child and that she'll lift the curse if they can bring them a list of item needed to make a potion. Through their journey they come across Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), future beanstalk climber Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), and many others.
I remember seeing my high school put on a production of this back when I was in middle school and I recall liking it a lot. I guess it was because I liked the idea of these characters existing in the same universe and how far it extended. Like maybe they'd run into Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz, or the Seven Dwarves, stuff like that.
But what about the film? Surprisingly I dug the hell out of this film, a lot more than I thought.
I can't speak from the aspect of Broadway lover, as I said I've only seen a high school's rendition of it 10 years ago, so I won't be surprised if there are fans of the original show who find this movie absolutely terrible.
But I think a big reason I enjoyed it is the themes and what it does with the story. This is a story that shows that 'Happily Ever After' may just be a short term result, that their maybe long term consequences. That's a pretty mature message.
Now I'm not some pessimistic Mr. Grumpy Gills who thinks life is all sad and torture and life sucks cause a girl turned me down and so on. The film shows that fairy tales are good for getting a message across, there maybe other conflicts down the road, emotionally or psychically.
I think my favorite moment in the film is in third act, SPOILERS, when the Giant's Wife (Frances da la Tour), is causing mass destruction throughout the land to avenge her husband's death, Cinderella is told that her now husband, one of two prince charmings in the film (Chris Pine), was flirting with the Baker's Wife. They part ways with the Prince saying, "
I shall always love the maiden that ran away." and Cinderella responding with, "
And I the faraway prince." That speaks to something very realistic that happens in the world. We do want those who are out of reach, and we'll do whatever it takes to get them. But happened if we do get them? But even then we'll always love the idea and keep it within us as a little bit of hope.
Also since this was produced by the Disney Company I really appreciate how they didn't just make the characters look like the Disney equivalent and kept the dark tone, especially with Cinderella's story.
But that's only part of a musical, the other parts are the performances and songs. I can speak as a song expert but I did enjoy them in their own way, and the performances were pretty good. Everyone who sings does a pretty good job with their respected roles. The most surprising was
Chris Pine as Cinderella's Prince. I mean when you head about the new Captain Kirk acting in a musical you all thought he'd be just there because he looks the part and probably won't sing. But he does a pretty good job in the role and is a pretty good singer. I won't lie I actually pulled out my phone a checked to see if there was anyone dubbing his voice, it has happened in the past even with the most
notable musical films. But I've seen nothing to indicate otherwise, so bravo to you Captain. You're certainly better than the
previous commander.
But as I said the others are just as good.
Meryl Streep continues to be a non-stop source of talent and the massively underrated
Emily Blunt fits her role perfectly. I think the only one that wasn't as grande in my book was
Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood. She didn't give a bad performance its just that she seems to be stuck in Broadway mode. The best way I can describe it is like that this, guess when Red's part comes in.
"Into the woods to sell a cow-"
"Into the woods to get the money-"
"Into the woods to lift the spell-"
"To make the potion-"
"To go to the festival-"
"INTO THE WOODS TO GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE"
See what I mean?
The only other complaint I have would be that there doesn't seem to be any real boundaries for the song. Also,
Johnny Depp's portray as the Wolf, it is so bizarre. I usually like bizarre and weird but it just sticks out like a sore thumb. I get they're going for a stage show feel by having an actual human portraying the character but having him dressed as a combination of a
Tex Avery wolf and wolf from the
BBC version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And I think I just got +10 in obscure references.
Other than that I did really enjoy this film, more so than I thought I would.
Wild
D: Jean-Marc Vallee
W: Nick Hornby
S: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, Gaby Hoffmann
The finally the fourth film,
Wild.
Jean-Marc Vallee, dips into the biopic pool again with noted English novelist
Nick Hornby as writer and Oscar winner
Reese Witherspoon as the lead in
Wild. The story of
Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon)
a woman who went on a 1,100 mile hike as a way to rediscover herself following the death of her mother (Laura Dern), her divorce, and after years of drug abuse and other destructive behavior.
This in a lot of ways this film does have a lot in common with
Vallee's previous film,
Dallas Buyers Club. Both stories are based on true events and both films deal with flawed humans who act reckless and think they have stuff figured out in a way only have a unfortunate event (for Strayed's case a series of unfortunate events) and then having to rediscover themselves. This is not me saying they're the same film, they aren't. Each film have their own elements and are good films on their own.
Dallas Buyers Club dealt with the subject the of oppression against the LGBT community while the film studied our overly macho cowboy lead, while
Wild looks at a woman who is trying to proove herself while going through the mourning process and tries to rediscover herself during a rough part of her life.
This film starts the hike when
Strayed started the hike and ends when she finishes, during her hike we get a series of flashback which tells her back story, I think it is honestly really clever. We go on the hike with her, we see her thoughts and we hear her internal monologues as she hikes. On that note, we have to be honest with our selves we'd be saying the same thing she says in the movie. I'm not talking about the deep thoughts about her parents, ex-husband and such but I mean her almost endless fountain of frustrated swearing.
The whole hike itself can be seen as symbolic. Its symbolic of a person's road to recovery or bettering one's self. One of the first scenes is
Strayed checking into a hotel and preparing herself for the hike can parallel us prepping for to make a change in our lives. Then her trying to put on her heavy backpack can be seen as a parallel as us trying to get actually started. Finally, her first couple miles as she struggles she says to herself,
"I can quit at anytime," and looks back at her starting point but keeps going because she'd probably kick herself for giving up. That's something I'm sure we all have been through.
There's also I nice motif going on with songs. Several points in the film she sings to herself and it transition into a flashback. Probably the best example of this was with the
Simon & Garfunkel song
Homeward Bound.
If I did have any little problem it would be that some moments the dialogue and inner thoughts basically become exposition for the audience. But that's a pretty minor thing.
This is a really good film and it is definitely worth seeing, especially around the beginning of the year.
Originally I said I enjoyed
Into the Woods the most out of all these films I saw but thinking about it more, I think this was my favorite film of the four.
What about you?
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