“Into the Woods”: Fractured Fairy Tales

Once Upon a Time, in a far off kingdom lived a sad young woman, a lonely lad named Jack and a childless baker with his wife.

This is “Into the Woods,” Stephen Sondheim’s musical about fairy tales. Disney and Rob Marshall have brought it to the big screen, working with Sondheim and James Lapine. And being a musical theater geek, of course I saw it.

I had some hesitation when I saw Disney was going to produce the film. Since I was familiar with the stage show, I knew there was a chance it was going to be changed to fit more with the Disney tone. Especially when fairy tales are so synonymous with “Walt Disney.” But it wasn’t as bad as I had initially feared. In fact, it was still very good.

Into the SPOILERS!

HIMYM: Mosby Boys!

We keep journeying to the end. Hang on!

We open with Robin catching up with her mother. Ullman can’t wait to meet Barney. She hopes he’s nothing like Robin’s father was. Ullman says there were a lot of warning signs before the wedding. Like how he was a playboy who slept with a lot of women. And was engaged to a stripper at one point! Sound like someone we know?