Probably the most thankless job a director can set himself is trying to adapt a beloved stage musical to screen, as the people you most need to win over for your movie to be a success (fans of the stage version) are also the people most likely to tar and feather you in the streets over the slightest deviation from the source material. You may think comic fans get salty about adaptation changes, but they have nothing on musical theatre nerds.

That’s probably why, despite musicals still being a lucrative movie genre, stage musicals adapted to screen are a rare beast and only getting rarer. Of the 50 top grossing movie musicals, only six began life on stage. The rest are either originals like The Greatest Showman, animated musicals or jukebox musicals like Bohemian Rhapsody or (sigh) Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Of course, it wasn’t always thus. The middle decades of the 20th century were a golden age for adaptations for stage musicals as that was the point where theatre and cinema were most alike. Colour photography and improvements in sound tech meant that cinema could finally match the visual and audio splendour of theatre. But, cinema had yet to fully embrace the freedom inherent in the medium and movies of the first half of the century often closely resembled filmed plays with constructed sets and static cameras. As cinema became less and less indebted to its theatrical roots, adapting stage musical to screen became a lot more challenging. To put it simply: movies are not plays and plays are not movies. And trying to turn one into the other can result in some pretty radical changes. And all those challenges are right up on screen in Into the Woods, a movie based on one of the most inherently theatrical musicals of the modern era.

I suppose I should establish my bona fides (by which I mean my lack thereof) before we get into this. Am I a huge Sondheim fan?

I’m just not super au fait with his work. I’ve seen Sweeney Todd both onstage and onscreen (loved both times) and I’ve seen Assassins on stage (kinda crap, honestly). I feel about Sondheim’s song-writing a bit like I feel about Lin Manuel Miranda’s; really depends on my mood. Sometimes it’s “Oh how clever!” and other times it’s “ugh, shut up, nerd“. Anyway, I have not seen Into the Woods onstage so any heresies taken with the text I will remain blissfully unaware of but I’m sure there’ll be some theatre kids in the comments happy to pick up the slack. On we go.

The movie opens with a shot of an overcast grey sky.

As the 2010s decade recedes far enough into the past for us to get a good look at it, one of the things I really did not like about this whole era of movie-making was the drab, washed out colour palette and that’s very much an issue with Into the Woods. Call me basic, but I think musicals should be bright and colourful and vibrant if they’re happy or dark and gothic and vibrant if they’re tragic. It’s this middle of the road depression chic that I can’t stand. And given that this is the very first shot of the movie I have to assume it’s a deliberate stylistic choice. But I don’t like it. I live in Ireland, if I want to see a grey overcast sky I’ll go outside on the sunniest day of the year.

In the prologue song, Into the Woods, we meet our large ensemble cast. There’s Cinderella with her Evil Step Mother and Conventionally Attractive Step-Sisters, Jack, his mother, and their dry cow Milky White, Little Red Riding Hood and lastly the Baker and his Wife. All these characters want something: Cinderella wants to go to the ball, Jack doesn’t want to have to sell the cow, Little Red Riding Hood wants to visit her Granny in the wood and the Baker and his Wife want a chiiiiiiiiiiiii-hiiiiiiild! And here’s Sondheim’s little stroke of genius, I didn’t actually have to tell you any of that (except the Baker and his wife, because they’re original characters), the familiarity the audience already has with these stories means that there isn’t really an issue with having such a large cast and convoluted inter-connecting plot.

Anyway the baker and his wife get a visit from the local witch who tells the couple that they will never have a child because of a curse that she put on the baker’s father years ago when he raided her garden for vegetables. The Witch says that as punishment for letting the Baker’s father steal some magic beans, the witch’s mother cursed the witch making her old and ugly. Oh, and the witch also claimed the baker’s father’s child who wasn’t the baker (see, this is why names are useful) and raised her as her own.

Okay…salient points. The Witch will lift the curse on the Baker’s family, letting him have a child if the Baker and his Wife get her the things she needs to lift the curse her mother put on her; a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold. The witch needs them to get them for her because if she herself touches any of the items they’ll be useless.

So, we have our quest. The Baker and his Wife have to find these four items which will mostly involve running around the same forest set, bumping into different people and singing ear-wormingly lyrically intricate songs. On we go.

Cinderella, forbidden to go to the ball, sorry “the festival” (I guess Sondheim really needed a three syllable word there) goes to a willow tree in the forest to commune with the spirit of her dead mother who grants her wish and gives a beautiful dress so that she can go to the ba…the festival.

I think, honestly, Anna Kendricks might be my favourite screen Cinderella (not that I have a tier list or anything). This is not the traditional smiling saint of older portrayals or the tough girlboss of later depictions. Kendricks’ Ella is coming apart from the abuse that’s been heaped on her and she finds a real sharp edge in Sondheim’s lyrics: “Never mind, Cinderella, Kind Cinderella, Nice good nice kind good nice!” that suggests she’s one bad hour away from from a complete nervous breakdown.

Meanwhile, Little Red Riding Hood encounters the Big Bad Wolf. My impression is that a lot of Sondheim fans think that Johnny Depp is the worst thing to happen to musicals since Covid but I never got that. I love him as Sweeney Todd and I think he’s really good as the wolf, giving the exact required mix of foppishness and predatory (in all meanings of the word) menace. But the scene does raise an interesting question about adaptation. Suspension of disbelief is just a given in a theatrical production but cinema tends to hew more to realism. Which can make it a bit jarring when a film that has an actual cow playing a cow shows you this:

And says “it’s a totally a wolf you guys, trust me. Look, he has pointy ears on his hat”

I’m not saying I wanted some ungodly CGI wolf singing with Depp’s voice but, I dunno, maybe a bit more effort? What did the original stage wolf costume look like?

Never mind, it’s fine. It’s fine.

Anyway, after singing the wonderfully creepy “Hello, Little Girl” the Wolf heads off to Granny’s house and the Baker finds Riding Hood and tries to steal her cloak but she screams until he gives it back. The Baker’s Wife then shows up and gives the Baker his father’s cloak which contains the magic beans that he stole from the witch all those years ago.

Just in time, Jack passes through with Milky White and the Baker and his Wife con the poor kid into giving them the cow in exchange for the beans. The Baker is having doubts that he’s cut out for fatherhood, but his wife begs him to continue for her sake. So he sends her home and continues looking for the other items. Just then, he hears a scream coming from the grandmother’s house and finds the wolf in a food coma after having eaten both Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. He cuts the wolf open and the girl thanks him and explains what happened:

When he said, “Come in!”
With that sickening grin
How could I know what was in store?
Once his teeth were bared
Though, I really got scared
Well, excited and scared

But he drew me close
And he swallowed me down
Down a dark slimy path
Where lie secrets that I never want to know

In gratitude for saving her, Riding Hood gives the baker her red cloak so now they’ve got two out of four.

On her way back to the house with Milky White, the Baker’s Wife runs into Cinderella who is fleeing the ba…the festival with Prince Charming in hot pursuit. The Baker’s Wife helps Cinderella hide but is obviously rather smitten with the Prince. After he leaves, she asks Cinderella about how wonderful it was to dance with the Prince and Cinderella is obviously upset because it wasn’t all that and she’s now realised that she never really wanted the one thing she thought she wanted so…what now?

The Baker’s Wife sees that Cinderella has the golden shoes but just as she tries to grab them the cow runs off. Meanwhile, Jack finds the Baker and offers to buy the cow back with five massive gold pieces that he got by climbing the magic beanstalk that appeared when you know all this, why am I recounting the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to you? Anyway, he sings Giants in the Sky, one of my favourite songs and excellently performed by Daniel Huttlestone. The Baker who is, as you might imagine, a bit surprised by Jack’s story doesn’t want to sell the cow so Jack runs off to get more money from the Giant. The Baker’s Wife then shows up and confesses to the Baker that she lost the cow so now they’re back to only having one of the items (the red cloak).

Meanwhile, Prince Charming runs into his brother, another Prince who’s been trying to find Rapunzel’s tower (Rapunzel’s in this too but her part’s been cut to buggery so I haven’t mentioned her yet). They sing Agony, another absolute banger and excellently performed by Chris Pine and Billy Magnusson and my personal pick for highpoint of the film.

The Baker’s Wife however, overhears them talking and learns that Rapunzel has hair as yellow as corn so sets off to scalp her. Now she’s got the hair and she runs into the Baker who’s found Milky White again.

Now they’ve only got one more item to find and the Baker at last agrees to let his wife stay in the woods and help him and they sing It Takes Two, a song that I imagine would work better onstage and possibly with different actors. Now, let me be clear, I actually think this is an excellent cast overall, especially considering a lot of these actors aren’t primarily known for musicals. Chris Pine in particular is an absolute revelation. And as for the Baker and his Wife, I think Emily Blunt is absolutely perfect and y’know what, James Corden’s not bad either. Ridiculously over-hated actor in general, frankly. But they don’t have romantic chemistry at all and this song, where the Wife starts seeing her man in a whole new light feels less like old love becoming young again and more like a woman trying to keep her spirits up as she she’s stalked through the woods by a man she doesn’t know.

Anyway, Jack arrives with a golden egg to buy Milky White, only for Milky White to suddenly drop dead because these people just cannot catch a fucking break. The Baker goes to market to try and buy a new cow with the money Jack gave him while the Wife manages at last to get the golden slipper from Cinderella by trading her own shoes. Oh, and in the process she drops the last of the magic beans.

The Baker returns with a white cow but when they bring it to the With it turns out it’s just a regular cow covered in flour. Fake moos. They tell the witch that they did have a white cow, honest, but that it’s now less cow and more…beef. But the witch tells them she can just bring Milky White back to life so now they have all four items!

They feed the other items to Milky White but the spell doesn’t work because the witch is Rapunzel’s kidnap mother which means she’s touched her hair which means it can’t be used to break her curse.

But! They realise that the reference corn they’ve been using to test the hair’s yellowness also has hair of its own…so they just feed that to the cow. And it works!

The witch is transformed into a beautiful woman, the Baker and his Wife can now have a child, Cinderella and the Prince are getting married, Jack and his mother are now rich and Little Red Riding Hood has a bitching new wolfskin coat. And they all lived happily ever after.

OR DID THEY?!?!?!

So. Into the Woods is (in)famous for its second act where all the happy endings are undone and just about everybody DIES HORRIBLY (this is why the second act is often omitted from school productions). Cinderella? Prince Charming’s cheating on her with Snow White. The Witch has lost her powers after regaining her youth and beauty. The Baker is freaking out that he’s not going to be a good father to his child and the Baker’s Wife is starting to think that Prince Charming lives up to his name.

And then, the Giant’s Wife climbs down the beanstalk that grew from the bean that the Baker’s Wife dropped and his going on a rampage to find Jack and kill him for killing her husband. Which, y’know. Fair?

After the Baker’s wife and Jack’s Mother are killed (along with half the kingdom), the Baker works with the other survivors trick the Giantess and kill her with a falling tree.

And the movie ends with the Baker, his infant son, Jack, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella returning home to the Baker’s house while singing Children Will Listen, a song about the power of the things we tell children, like, to pick an example at random, fairy tales.

***

Into the Woods hews closely to the source material and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. The good is that, hey, if you want a filmed version of Into the Woods, this is about as good as you’re going to get. Oh, we can quibble about this and that (I personally think that, star power be damned, Meryl Streep should have been axed and the part of the Witch given to Bernadette Peters to reprise as God intended).

The bad is…well, I just don’t think this play is suitable for the screen. Because it’s very much a play and its inherent theatricality becomes very noticeable when half of the runtime is people running into each other in a different part of the wood.

Still though, for all it’s flaws it’s a faithful, heartfelt adaptation of American classic and it could have been a helluva lot worse. That’s something to celebrate.

NEXT UPDATE: 06 March 2025

NEXT TIME: Okay, get your “how topical” comments out of your system now, folks.