Into the Woods

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

Marshall's adaptation lands in genuinely mixed territory: the first act earns goodwill through a strong ensemble and handsome production, but the darker second act — where Sondheim's existentialist bite lives — is where critics most sharply divided, with many feeling Disney's sanitizing hand drained the material of its real power. Meryl Streep was the one point of near-universal agreement, widely seen as the film's center of gravity, though even that had a dissenter.