Oscar Nominations
Best Supporting Actress - Meryl Streep
Best Costume Design
Best Production Design
Musicals aren’t really my forte. Most are adapted from stage productions, and
seeing as I have little money or inclination to see stage shows with any sort
of frequency, musicals are often lost on me.
Film adaptations of musicals are often measured by critics against their
staged counterparts, and from what I’ve read about Into The Woods, critical reactions are somewhat mixed about how
well the adaptation holds up. However,
that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here
to tell you whether or not I thought this was a good film, and, perhaps
more pressingly at the time of writing, how I think it fares in its respective
Oscar races. So how does Into The Woods fare? Pretty damn well, even if I wouldn’t call it
one of my favorites of the past year.
To those unfamiliar, this story takes place in a fairy tale
world and follows the exploits of a baker and his wife, who, in order to lift a
curse placed upon them by a witch, must collect four artifacts from various
characters that we as the audience all grew up hearing about: Cinderella,
Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood, and Jack of beanstalk fame. The plotting relies on the interweaving
nature of the stories to explain how each of the events in the classic tales
come to pass, which makes for a clever idea and is executed pretty
seamlessly. The constant intersection of
the various characters does feel a little artificial at times, but given that
the source material relied upon the small space of a stage, the apparent lack
of vastness to the titular woods is forgivable.
But the story, as with any musical, is secondary to the
songs and performances, and I’m happy to say that I wasn’t disappointed. I’m no musical expert, but I enjoyed the
overlapping harmonies and energy that the songs offered, which even now tempts
me to purchase the soundtrack. Emily
Blunt, Anna Kendrick, and James Corden all turn out to be fantastic at the sort
of fairy tale whimsy that is required in this sort of story, and none are bad
singers to boot. Even the child
performances playing Red and Jack are well executed, which is refreshing to see
when so often Disney’s child performers are brought up from the dredges of kid
sitcoms. But of course, the elephant in
the room is Meryl Streep, and while I think that she does an admirable job with
her performance, I don’t think her character is complex enough or given enough
screentime to justify her Best Supporting Actress nomination. She seems to have been nominated more out of
acknowledgment of her pedigree than based on this particular performance, as well
suited to the part as she may appear to be.
Even without the Academy’s distinction, though, the film as
a whole is just a lot of fun to watch.
The sets and costumes are well designed, the performances are a pleasure, and the story takes a subversive twist at the halfway point that
surprised me out of what I thought was a comfortable predictability to the
plot, only to turn out an even better product as the result. As a layman to the world of musical theater,
I found this to be a film that was quite entertaining, and that’s about all one
could expect or want from it. Check it
out.
What do you think are Meryl Streep’s best roles? Leave your opinions in the comments below.
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