FILM REVIEW: Into The Woods

After watching Into The Woods, Rob Marshall’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s 1987 musical, it seems to me that ‘The Woods’ aren’t so much a place, but rather a state of mind. A place of suspended disbelief, where stories are mixed up and characters wander in and out of narratives as they please.

By default, some people will gel with this quite happily, where others won’t. It’s worth remembering that, despite the variety of upside-down, what-happened-next fairytales available for our viewing pleasure, Into the Woods was very much a forerunner back in the day. 

But back to the film. The ‘Prologue’, introduces us to James Corden’s baker and his wife (Emily Blunt) a childless couple, who are one day visited by a witch (Meryl Streep) who claims responsibility for the curse on their house which has rendered them childless all these years. They are set the challenge of retrieving certain magical items (you can probably hazard a guess) by the next blue moon in three days’ time in order for the curse to be lifted. Along the way, they meet some familiar fairy-tale faces, albeit with a twist each time, from an indecisive Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), to an arrogant, slightly sinister Prince Charming (Chris Pine), to an emotional Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) via Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) of beanstalk fame, whose best friend is a cow.

Personally I’d be hard pushed not to enjoy something Sondheim has had even the smallest involvement in, as the many questionable performances of ‘Being Alive’ I’ve watched on youtube is a testament to, but arguably as strong a draw with this production is the all-star cast. And that proved a worthy notion, although not entirely in the way you would expect. Most of the pre-release hype has been focused almost entirely on Meryl Streep, calling to mind that highly appropriate Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Golden Globes joke ‘Meryl Streep can’t be here tonight… She has the flu – and I hear she’s amazing in it’.

And amazing indeed she is, veering between cackling, spell-casting and flashing her disturbingly long nails –all your traditional witchy activities – and genuine, heart-felt laments at the loss of her beauty and youth. Oh and her magic beans, of course. She’s quite keen on them. Her performance of the powerful ‘Last Midnight’, a typically complex Sondheim number full of quirky rhymes (see ‘witch’ and ‘hitch’, ‘hunch’ and ‘bunch’) and neat summaries of just about everyone else in the plot along the way, is particularly awe-inspiring.

But I’d be willing to bet that it is Emily Blunt’s performance audiences are still talking about on the bus home. She plays the childless baker’s wife with vulnerability, warmth and vitality, all whilst cracking out a singing voice I certainly had no idea she possessed, providing some really gorgeous harmonies in the group numbers in particular.

And it’s not just Blunt who takes us by surprise. Chris Pine’s performance of the out-loud ego-trip ‘Agony’ alongside Rapunzel’s Prince Billy Magnussen was an unexpected triumph (‘Agony! Far more painful than yours, when you know she would go with you, if there only were doors’), as were almost all songs performed by the younger actors - Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood and Les Miserables’ Daniel Huttlestone as Jack. Film viewers know Anna Kendrick has a lovely voice through Pitch Perfect, but it’s great to see her stretching her cinematic comfort zone a bit here, and using those Tony nominated Broadway vocal chords to full effect. 

You can also play an excellent game of ‘spot the character actor’ in Act II, if Johnny Depp (who else?)’s performance as the infamous big bad wolf wasn’t enough for you.

Marshall has played a sensible game here in striking for the fun, playful angle in Into The Woods, rather than overly focusing on the themes of storytelling or the innate darkness in children’s stories – Cinderella’s ugly sisters cutting off parts of their feet in order to fit the slipper, anyone? The darker scenes are there, granted, but they never feel like the main focus.

This is by no means a perfect film, you do get the slight sense at times that there's a little something missing, but you can't quite put your finger on what.

With that in mind, if you enter the woods looking for a good time, you won’t stray far from the path. 

★★★★

Jen

@jenniferklarge

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FILM REVIEW: The Iron Lady

Phyllida Law’s new biopic opens on an old lady buying milk, unable to believe how much prices have risen. An old lady in a headscarf, not walking particularly well and looking a bit lost. In fact, the film opens on an old lady in a headscarf who really could be just about any old lady in a headscarf. This is strangely in-keeping with the rest of the film, however, as from start to finish you get the impression that this is not a film about Margaret Thatcher. An Iron Lady, maybe, but not The.

True, it does track the life of the first ever female Prime Minster of Great Britain, played magnificently by Meryl Streep, greatly deserving of her Golden Globe, as she rises to power from the life of a humble grocer’s daughter.  We see how she first becomes a local MP, then Education Secretary and finally the leader of both her Party and the country she obsessively adores. We see key events in her personal and political life via flashback, as the elderly Baroness Thatcher is jolted back to the moment in question by various items of strategically placed memorabilia.

In this way the film does try, very, painfully hard to be a film about Margaret Thatcher- but it still isn’t. The social reality of her politics is cut short precisely as Lady Thatcher’s housekeeper turns off the television when a news piece about her employer becomes too negative. We learn nothing from this film about the effects of the nationwide strikes, political motives, the bombing of the Tory Party conference, the Irish Republican Army, controversial tax laws or the Falklands War. Well, we do, but it is two dimensional at best, portraying the PM as unquestionably and unwaveringly in the right throughout. Even get classic lines such as the now infamous ‘The Lady’s not for turning’ have been left out.

What we do get as a result of this, though, be it intentional or otherwise, is a touching and surprisingly moving film about the effects of a lifetime of public service.  We get a story about one woman’s sense of duty- an ambitious loyalty she refuses to give up for anyone. We also get a brave re-imagining of dementia through Lady Thatcher’s interactions with her late husband, Dennis (Jim Broadbent), and through this we get a film about a couple. Mesmerizing as Streep is in the role of Mrs Thatcther, and she is mesmerizing, this remains a film about the two of them. About Dennis’ valued support, her care for him and her anguish that he is no longer there. In fact, one of the most poignant moments in the film is Lady Thatcher, with characteristic defiance, shouting ‘I will not go mad’ at the imaginary Dennis.  

Again, though, Dennis could be the loyal husband of any successful woman, not necessarily The Iron Lady herself. The inability of the film to truly engage with its’ subject matter is also screamingly obvious in its presentation of women. It desperately wanted to be a Feminist revision of Thatcher’s legend, but it could never have achieved this. For one thing, Thatcher herself preferred ‘the company of men’, cooked Dennis’ dinner for him and famously denounced the Feminist Movement.

It does try, though. We have scenes of a younger Margaret setting off for Parliament, leaving behind her crying children, but these are never fully explored. We have the very same younger Margaret claiming she ‘will never die washing out a teacup’, yet the final scene sees… her washing out a teacup. This may be both visually and dramatically poignant, but it is too confusing when put next to any attempt at a Feminist discourse.  The same is true of the focus upon clothes. The inclusion of The Iron Lady’s real-life claim that her pearls were ‘non-negotiable’ is intended to show both her love for the family they represent but also her obstinate nature. Its use in the film, though, coupled with the use of shoes from start to finish as a symbol of ‘not fitting in’, perpetuates an atmosphere of ‘silly women and their accessories’. This does nothing for the film or the woman herself.  And again, this is a film about Margaret Thatcher which does not want to be about Margaret Thatcher.

All in all, though, The Iron Lady is worth seeing. It does lack focus and can be two dimensional in places, but its’ decision to focus on the relationship between Lady Thatcher and her husband was a wise one.  It is a good film as far as it is the story of one woman’s sheer determination to succeed, and the man who loved her for it. A good film about her politics, and her place in political history, and what really went on, it probably isn’t.

***

3 stars- one for Meryl Streep, one for Jim Broadbent and one for my involuntary tears in Dennis’ final scene.

- Jen