Who knows what may be lurking on the journey...

Source: Into the Woods (2014) (imdb.com)

Hello to another Theatre Scribbles and I hope you're ready for the journey, as this time, I will be reviewing the film adaptation of Into The Woods. Though it is not on stage, how on earth can I not review this?!

Before getting into it, let me tell you a little bit of background. Into the Woods has music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim with a book by James Lapine, and first opened on Broadway in 1987. Its cast included Bernadette Peters as The Witch and it won 3 Tony Awards in 1988, in a year dominated by The Phantom of the Opera. It transferred to London in 1990, winning 3 Olivier Awards, including Best Actress in a Musical for Imelda Staunton as The Baker's Wife.

Until recently, I didn't really know much of Sondheim's work. I studied West Side Story (WSS) for my Music A Level, but other than that, it has been watching film (such as WSS and Gypsy) and finding concert versions on YouTube (such as  Company (which I don't really get) and Sweeney Todd or the birthday Prom a from few years ago). I've never seen Sondheim on stage; but that's for another day. On the with the film....

Into the Woods tells the familiar stories of Cinderella (played by Anna Kendrick), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) , Jack and the Beanstalk (Daniel Huttlestone) and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), all tied together with an original story about a Baker and his Wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) who wish to lift the curse The Witch (Meryl Streep) set on their house so they can conceive a child; so they set off into the woods to find 1) The cow as white as milk, 2) The cape as red as blood, 3) The hair as yellow as corn, 4) The slipper as pure as gold. All the characters have wishes and the story explores the consequences of having their wishes fulfilled and accepting responsibility for their actions - it's pretty deep and dark for Disney to take up... And with that, I'm not going to spoil the plot any further as I would like you all to enjoy it yourselves.

The cast was absolutely brilliant, and the crew picked perfectly for pretty much every part. I was fairly confident about most of the cast before coming in but even the ones who I know would be good surpassed my expectations. I know that Sondheim generally prefers actors who can sing for his material rather than the other way around, but it just turns out that they're actors who can REALLY sing. Some of them have been in other musical films, some had been on stage, and some were nice surprises.

For the ones that I knew would be good: Anna Kendrick is now really known for Pitch Perfect and it was nice to hear a slightly more classical tone of her voice for playing Cinders; we knew Meryl Streep can sing thanks to Mamma Mia, but she really gets the chance to show off what her voice can do in this film, and she sometimes sounded like Bernadette Peters, especially during Stay with Me; as for the two kids, I already had Lilla Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone on my iPod as she played Annie fairly recently on Broadway and he played Gavroche in Les Mis, so I was thrilled when I learnt they got the parts and it wasn't really surprising that they were already so good.

For the surprises, I loved the chemistry between The Baker and his Wife; James Corden is adorable, and Emily Blunt has a gorgeous voice, much better than I was expecting. The REAL surprise for me was Chris Pine as Cinderella's "charming not sincere" Prince. Boy he can sing! But as much as I liked a singing Captain Kirk, I couldn't stop laughing whenever he was on screen. He overacted it A LOT!!! Agony, the duet he sings with Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel's Prince) was hilarious as they try to compete as who has the worse situation, particularly when he tries to rip his shirt off..... You'll see what I mean when you see it.

The only little thing to pick on was whether it was really necessary to have Johnny Depp as The Wolf, even if he may be Disney's poster boy. Don't get me wrong, I really like Johnny Depp and I think he's a really good actor. And we know he can sing. Heck we know he can sing Sondheim (see Sweeney Todd)!  What I am saying is that The Wolf is not in it for very long, so did they need to give such a small part to such a high-profile actor? However, he did a good job with what he had, being seductive, menacing and cunning.

I don't really want to go on about it anymore in fear of spoiling it, so GO AND SEE IT!!!! It will appeal to not just musical theatre fans, but also fans of the fantasy genre - from LOTR to TB's Alice and Maleficent. I'm also going to give out a little warning: the main song WILL NOT leave your head - it's not left mine since Friday!

Oh and for Sondheim fans, have an ear out for the Night Waltz theme from A Little Night Music during the festival scenes.

I really enjoyed watching this, and now have to wait for an opportunity when I can see Sondheim on stage....