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Once upon a time, in an honors English class, there was a blog to be written. Welcome back to From Silver Screen to Spotlight: the only blog that reviews, rates, and critiques movie musicals! We are all familiar with the classic fairytales of Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding hood, Cinderella, and Rapunzel, but what if I were to tell you that there is one musical where all these fairytales (and then some) come together in one cohesive story? Well, look no further than Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, a modern twist on these classic stories!

           Into the Woods is arguably Sondheim’s most famous and beloved musical with not 1, but 3 successful Broadway runs and a movie musical starring Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, and Johnny Depp. But as always, one question stands above the rest: which version (stage or movie) is superior?

Into the Summary

In this Brothers Grimm inspired musical, Into the Woods tells the story of the Baker and his Wife, a childless couple who wishes to have a child, Jack, a village boy who wishes his cow would give some milk, Cinderella who wishes to go to the King’s Festival, and Little Red who wishes to visit her grandmother in the woods. In the opening prologue of the show, the Baker and his Wife are greeted by the neighborhood Witch who reveals that she had placed a curse on the Baker’s family lineage, thus barring the Baker and his Wife from bearing children. To break the curse, the Baker and his Wife must journey into the woods to retrieve a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, a hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold. Throughout the show, these fairytale characters must work together to get their wish, live the “happily ever after” life they dreamt of, and eventually save their kingdom after Jack’s Beanstalk wreaks havoc on the community.

As always, I encourage you to watch the movie for a more in-depth plot summary. Given the intermingling and weaving of various fairytales, this show can get quite confusing and convoluted in plot, so I highly recommend listening to “Into the Woods: Prologue” or just watching the movie if this is a show of interest to you!

The Prologue: https://youtu.be/UGoyfPXHnXo

Characters

As I have mentioned, the characters are all ones we are very familiar given their fairytale roots. However, it is important to understand that these fairytale characters are not the same characters popularized by the House of Mouse. Instead, Into the Woods resorts back to the original, Brothers Grimm version of these characters, so the story and characters are much darker and complex than their innocent and simple Disney counterparts. Personally, I love that Into the Woods reverts to the original story of these fairytales. While I love and adore Disney and the magic they have created, I much prefer the darker, rawer, and gorier tales of the Grimm Brothers (I can’t help it that I love horror)! I think it gives the overall musical much more depth and allows the audience to see a different side to the characters they grew up watching on Disney.

Into the Woods on Broadway

          Into the Woods, written by the infamous composer Stephen Sondheim, originally opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre in 1987. It only played a total of 765 performances before closing in 1989, but it was an instant success. It won 3 Tony Awards (including best original score) and launched Bernadette Peter’s stellar career. Since its original closure, Into the Woods has had 2 revivals, including one as recent as this past year! In fact, I actually saw the most recent revival of Into the Woods on its opening night on Broadway, and let’s just say, I have never been to a more packed theatre with that many stars and reporters before in my life (which I expected given how anticipated it was). As a big Broadway fan, it has always been my dream to see a Broadway show on its opening night, and to see Into the Woods with a star-studded cast of Sara Bareilles (The Baker’s Wife), Brian d’Arcy James (The Baker), Phillipa Soo (Cinderella), Gavin Creel (Cinderella’s Prince/the Wolf), and Julia Lester (Little Red Ridinghood) was truly surreal and memorable.

This revival was only supposed to perform for 8 weeks (from July 10, 2022, to September 4, 2022), but it was so popular that they ended up delaying their closure until this past January. With just a brief run of 209 performances, this revival grossed over $36 million and recorded an entire cast album, which, is not very common for revivals to do. As you can imagine, Into the Woods has been a beloved and cherished show since its original 1987 Broadway run, so the pressure was on when producers decided to adapt the stage version into a movie in 2014.

Here are a few clips from the 2022 Broadway Revival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ay_WBimgC8

Into the Woods Movie

             Directed by Rob Marshall, Into the Woods hit theaters on December 25, 2015. With a budget of $50 million, the movie more than doubled its profits at the box office and even earned a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. I mean, how could this movie not be successful? With a cast of Meryl Streep (the Witch), Anna Kendrick (Cinderella), Johnny Depp (the Wolf), Emily Blunt (the Baker’s Wife), Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince), and James Corden (the Baker), this movie was stacked high as Jack’s beanstalk in talent. The standouts for me were Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick. These two actresses are truly class-act performers who truly are a double threat. Kendrick’s voice as Cinderella is so sweet and feminine, but is a little darker in tone, thus distinguishing her from the typical “Cinderella” voice. As an alto, I love that Kendrick perfectly mixes together a warm and bright tone to create the beautiful voice of Cinderella. Streep, on the other hand, is excellent as the Witch. Although every character shines and shimmers in their own way, the Witch is the lead, so any actress that plays her needs to have a commanding presence and strong voice, all of which Streep brought to the table. Anybody who has seen Mamma Mia and The Devil Wears Prada knows that Streep delivers, and her rendition of the Witch is no exception. While her role as the Witch may not be as iconic as her role as Donna in Mamma Mia, I still think it is an excellent display of her talents and abilities.

Honestly, the rest of the cast is great! I know James Corden gets a lot of criticism for his performances in these movie musicals, but I thought that his Baker was perfect. He wasn’t overly zany and cartoonish, and he played the character the way it should be played. For movie musical casts, this was definitely one of the stronger ones for sure.

For the entire cast and crew, check out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/

Plot and Accuracy

Truth be told, this movie musical is one of the more accurate ones. My first introduction to Into the Woods was this movie and after being in a version of Into the Woods myself and seeing it on Broadway, I still think it holds up. Now, this movie is not perfect and there are a few inaccuracies that should be addressed. In the stage version, there is a narrator who drives the story along and clarifies any confusion for the audience. Contrary to what you may think, the narrator is actually very funny and is important to the story as the same actor plays the Mysterious Man who, spoiler alert, is revealed to be the Baker’s long-lost father. I love the usage of a Narrator for the musical because it drives home the idea that we are watching a fairytale come to life. However, I can understand why the movie cut the narrator, instead replacing him with James Corden as the Baker. After all, a movie can do things that a stage version cannot, such as explaining the story with cutaways and flashbacks. Since the stage version can’t do this, it makes sense why a Narrator is there to explain any of the flashbacks or cutaways that the audience cannot see. But with a movie, filmmakers can easily portray the same effect with film, so I was not upset with this change.

I was, however, more upset to see the Mysterious Man cut from the movie. This character, as I had mentioned, is the Baker’s father. When the Baker realizes that his father has been alive the entire time, they share a great scene filled with anger, sadness, and eventually love and acceptance. The Mysterious Man is a great plot twist in the story that many audience members do not see coming, so I was pretty disappointed when the movie decided to abolish this plot element.

Another element I dislike about the movie is how dark it is. Yes, I know that I just said how much I love the dark nature of the show, but the movie dives a little too into it. After all, Into the Woods is a comedy, especially the first act. When my sister and I saw the Broadway version, we were laughing so hard that it brought tears to our eyes. The darkness of the show primarily comes from the end when all of their good luck turns sour, but the movie kind of makes the entire show feel serious in a tone that I strongly dislike, especially knowing how it is intended to be performed.

Cinematography

            The movie is rather dark, both literally and figuratively. Because they are in the woods, the majority of the film is captured in dark shades of blue and black. This isn’t the worst thing, but I would have liked to have seen a bit more light in the wooded scenes, especially since it is supposed to be a comedy! But this is something I can live with as there are worst things I could nitpick on. And the cinematography, for the most part, is quite striking and beautiful.

Here is the trailer for the movie to give a better depiction of the cinematography: https://youtu.be/7pjy5MK1X70

The Score

            I really like the score for Into the Woods! While it isn’t my favorite Sondheim score, it is bouncy, quick, and beautiful. Given the complex emotions of the show, the score does a great job at reflecting the sad, the happy, the good, and the bad. Granted, there are a few songs that annoy me, but that is because I had to perform them a ton when I played the role of Cinderella. If you ask any other theatre kid what they think of the score, you will see that I am very much in the minority.

As a composer, Sondheim was infamous for creating long pieces of music with difficult time signatures and overlapping vocal parts. Into the Woods is no exception. In just the “Prologue” alone, all the characters are singing over each other with what they wish until they all harmonize together at the end. Surprisingly, this mesh of time signatures and vocals always works and isn’t very confusing to the ear. In fact, it is quite pleasant and enjoyable.

The movie manages to keep almost every song in. Of course, that just means that the movie is longer, but I personally don’t mind. One of my biggest pet peeves with musicals is when they cut songs from the movie version because they often change the story and plot by doing so, but Into the Woods thankfully did not make that mistake.

The 2022 Broadway Revival of Into the Woods | Photo Source

Some of my favorite songs from the score include: “Prologue: Into the Woods,” “I Know Things Know,” “Agony,” “It Takes Two,” “Your Fault,” and “No One is Alone.”

For the full movie soundtrack, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OUJYlRjWaQ&list=PLvucyDghQh0wr8QCiuTB0w1NF8GexgLz4

Are we going Into the Movie or Into the Broadway Version?

            While I do believe that the stage version is better overall, I will give a huge thumbs up to the movie. The cast is great, the songs are amazing, and the story is pretty much the same. You can easily watch the movie and understand the show perfectly without any loose ends. In fact, I think that the movie, in some ways, is better to understand than the stage version, so if you need a good movie musical for your next watch party, watch Into the Woods!