Review of INTO THE WOODS

INTO THE WOODS

This movie blends four classical fairy tales into a musical mélange that is a treat to watch. A reasonably accurate version of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood, is all joined together by a new tale of the barren baker and his wife. This couple is childless because an ugly old witch (Meryl Streep), furious that the baker's father stole greens from her garden, cursed the house with infertility. However, she's willing to remove the curse if the two bring her "the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold."

Red Riding Hood has the cape, and Rapunzel has the hair. In this version, Jack's cow is milky white and Cinderella's slipper is of gold. Though the path is strewn with obstacles, the baker and his wife finally get all four of the required objects (Rapunzel's hair doesn't work, but they find a substitute) and feed them to the cow who promptly gives milk that makes the witch young and beautiful.

The witch keeps her promise, and the baker's wife promptly becomes nine months pregnant. Cinderella and Rapunzel get their princes, Jack is rich from the gold he stole from the giant, and the-girl-who-is-called-by-her-clothing gets a nice, new wolf-skin coat. (What will they call her now?) So everyone lives happily ever after. Right?

Wrong. The second half takes a distinctly darker tone, and that's the whole point of the movie. Even when the situation seems ideal, life brings surprises.

The movie is taken from the play of the same name by Stephen Sondheim, and follows the same general plot line. The play was written in 1987 at the height of the AIDs epidemic, and may be a metaphor for that tragedy. The movie, a 2014 Disney production when AIDs is more controllable, is much less edgy. (The wolf in the play, for example, is half naked with an erect penis. Not so Johnny Depp.)

All in all, it's the movie is wonderful entertainment. The music, the plot, and the acting are outstanding. As a workout movie, it should get your pulse up to a run. I give it ++++

By the way, DVD's for both the movie and the original play are available.