I've been having an Into the Woods week. Tuesday night, I saw a pretty good stage production of the musical. Last night, I went to the Motion Picture Academy's theater to see a screening of the new movie, followed by a panel discussion with the director, screenwriter and most of the stars. The panel discussion was pleasant enough, though 95% of it was about how much they all loved being involved in this film and how much they loved working with each other. Meryl Streep and Tracey Ullman spent a lot of it playfully annoying each other.
I liked the movie a lot. It's very lovely and extremely faithful to the show. Journalist Pete Hammond, who moderated the panel after, and James Corden (who's quite wonderful as the Baker) both made the interesting point that they managed to cut a three-hour play down for a two-hour movie without losing anything notable. Actually, all the performers are quite wonderful and, since the purpose of this showing was to rally some support for Academy Awards, I found myself wondering which of them, besides Ms. Streep, they're going to put up for Best Actor/Actress and which ones will have campaigns for supporting roles. In many ways, the best performance was given by the cinematographer.
The film hasn't formally opened so I guess I'm not supposed to post a real review…and by the time I can, everyone will be reviewing it and raving about it. It's a fine piece of work and if you have any love for the material, you won't be disappointed.