Butler's Cinema Scene

James Corden, Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep

“INTO THE WOODS”  My rating: B-

124 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

“Into the Woods” is a terrific big-screen musical right up to the point when it suddenly stops being great and turns disheartening and annoying.

In this it is exactly like the stage version of this Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine collaboration, which I saw in previews in New York just before its 1987 debut.  I’m talking 90 minutes of wonderful followed by 30 minutes of meh. So meh, in fact, that it damn near ruins all the good stuff.

Director Rob Marshall, who more or less singlehandedly resurrected the movie musical with 2002’s “Chicago,” comes charging out of the gate here, delivering a movie that works musically and  cinematically and which strikes just the right tongue-in-cheek tone in revisiting the fairy tale cliches of our childhoods.

In a village just outside the woods the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) yearn for a child.  Their cronish neighbor (a gleefully scenery-chawing Meryl Streep), widely believed to be a witch, reveals that in his childhood she put a curse of infertility on the Baker.  Now she offers to lift the hex if the couple will obtain for her several items needed for an incantation that will restore her youth and beauty.

Among the things sought in this scavenger hunt: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold.

Johnny Depp as the Wolf; Lilla Crawford as Red Riding Hood

The Baker and his wife go into the woods in search of these items.  And they’re not the only ones mucking about in the forest.

Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) is a greedy little beauty always stuffing her mouth. Her  walk to Grandma’s House is interrupted by a Wolf (Johnny Depp) who wears a fedora and zoot suit.

Meanwhile dumb young Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) has been sent by his impoverished mother (Tracey Ullman) to sell their cow. He’s so thick he trades the animal for a handful of allegedly magic beans.

Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) dreams of attending a royal ball with her evil stepmother (Christine Baranski) and stepsisters. The enchanted woods provide a way…in fact the transformed Cinderella catches the eye of the Prince (Chris Pine).

The Witch keeps her daughter Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) in an inaccessible tower…but doesn’t anticipate that a second Prince (Billy Magnussen) will sweep her off her feet.

All this is delivered with a sort of “Fairie Tale Theater”-on-steroids insouciance. Overplayed this material could easily choke on its own self-referential cleverness, but Marshall pulls terrifically sharp, funny performances from his players.

And in the case of Cordon and Blunt as a loving couple desperate to become parents, we get a good deal more.  There’s genuine love and affection in the relationship (most of the characters are good with a quip but not with emotional substance).

The Sondheim score isn’t exactly hummable, but it’s filled with dazzling wordplay — it’s like Cole Porter took up rapping. And one of the numbers — the song “Agony,” which is sung by the two princes as they try outdo one another in describing the torments of their respective loves — is show-stoppingly funny. (Who knew that Chris Pine could hold a tune?)

As long as the various characters are crashing through the underbrush in search of their hearts’ desires, the film has terrific energy. And as with all good fairy tales, it prepares to end with the happily-ever-after nuptials of prince and commoner.

Except that it doesn’t.  Lapine and Sondheim added a last act that turns everything on its head, going from hip light-heartedness to dour darkness.  A giantess is destroying everything (seems she’s p.o.’d at Jack climbing that beanstalk and killing her old man) and there are fatalities — including my favorite character.

I can understand what the authors were trying to do in a philosophical sense — showing the human pain behind fairy tales. But it doesn’t play dramatically.  In fact, it feels like a betrayal.

This last act would be a total wash had it not held the single most beautiful song in the score: “No One Is Alone,” sung by Streep. The tune is so powerful that it shows the mean spirit at work in the rest of the proceedings.

Technically the film is first rate. But that last act leaves a bitter taste.  What’s so bad about a happy ending?

| Robert W. Butler