By SQ Reviews Into the Woods is a story that spreads enough blame around to indict half the cast as villains, but the movie ends with a restorative justice message. It takes a whole community to destroy a community; conversely, all members of society working together can make communities whole.
Director and producer Rob Marshall brought to the screen Stephen Sondheim’s acclaimed musical medley of familiar fairytales and surprised the members of SQ Reviews (who as a rule do not watch musicals). Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) get lost in the proverbial woods, each in her own way. The Baker (James Corden) and the Wife (Emily Blunt) swindle little boy Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) out of his mother’s cow with magic beans to fulfi ll a deal the couple made with the wicked Witch to remove the Witch’s fertility curse.
Reviewers meet to discuss the musical in the lot between the Education Department and the San Quentin News. We spend the fi rst fi ve minutes staring silently at Juan Meza who smiles, unfazed by our disapproval. He’s the one who insisted we “do something different” and review a musical. “I’m just going to get this out of the way,” Emile DeWeaver begins. “I liked it.”
“It was a musical,” says Rahsaan Thomas. “I couldn’t in good conscience watch more than 30 percent of it. If I ever get married, I might raise that standard to 50 percent.”
Meza turns to talk to DeWeaver, pointedly ignoring Thomas. “It was interesting, right?” says Meza. “All those stories interconnected. I liked most of it; I wanted to shake Jack, though. That kid was dumb.”
Everyone is laughing, but Thomas says, “That’s wrong; you can’t call a kid dumb.”
“The boy was an idiot,” Meza says. “His own mother told him every day: You’re stupid.”
“Okay, I get your irritation,” DeWeaver says. “But I wonder if being told he was stupid everyday made Jack stupid?’
“You’re such a liar, you’re not wondering at all,” Meza says, and everyone laughs again. DeWeaver has been sitting in too many Patten College classes where instructors ask leading questions to which they think they know the answers.
Meza continues, “I see your point. In real life, that’s true, but in this movie, Jack was just dumb. I mean, his mom would say it, and she’d look sad. She was just stating the plain facts: My kid is an idiot.”
“Jack’s mom reminded me of my family,” DeWeaver says. “They used to say I had the Devil in me. They did exorcisms; my father had the house anointed with holy oil. They didn’t do it out of maliciousness, but I began to believe I was on the Devil’s side of things and internalized it. Often in prison, people are treated like animals. Some resist, but many internalize the treatment and act out as animals. Careless judgments can create monsters.”
Thomas agrees and switches topics. “Did anyone fi nd the song between Red Riding Hood and the Baker creepy: I know I shouldn’t have strayed from the path, but I was excited by the wolf. He wanted to teach me things.”
“That part was just wrong,” says Meza, “and I was bothered that they tried to make it right. That creepiness aside, I liked the restorative justice message. Everybody had a right to be mad at everybody, but they had to stop blaming and get to solutions. Everybody had a voice, everyone told their stories, and everyone faced their demons. Nobody commits an offense alone; it’s a societal problem.”