Personal Reflection on The Film into The Woods

For the second outside of class event, I watched the film “Into The Woods.” The film displayed a mix of many fairy tales, but they were side-stories and helped advance the story of the main character. The fairy tales that I recognized were Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel. The main characters were the baker and the baker’s wife who had been cursed with a spell. In order to reverse the spell and have a baby, they needed to obtain objects from the original fairy tale characters like a blood-red cape or hair yellow as corn. The film was fun to watch, but I didn’t realize it was musical-based. Perhaps there were one too many songs in the movie, but I’m not the biggest fan of musicals. The message seemed to be that during life, one should act truly and stick with their friends and families. Life gets hard and challenges arise, but if one has a support system, it makes getting through much easier.

One main relationship that was constant throughout the film was between the baker and his wife with all of the fairy tale characters they needed items from. They would change their personas throughout the story to convey characters to give certain ingredients for the witch to undo a spell. The baker seemed to be a nice man with sincere ways of thinking, but he would do actions that didn’t seem normal for him. When trying to obtain the red cape, his first instinct was to steal it. When that didn’t work, he apologized and lied to her while begging for it. The baker believed the relationship between his wife and the ability to have a child was reason enough to complete such actions. He wouldn’t receive the cape until he saved Little Red Riding Hood from the wolf. He acted from within and exemplified who he actually was as a person.

The baker even changed his personality with his wife throughout the story. He was acting egocentric telling his wife that she was incapable of finding the necessary items and that she should’ve returned home. The wife stated during their journey that, "You're not the man that started, it takes two of us.” She was starting to notice a change in the way he was acting, his actions weren’t how he usually acted. As soon as she was deemed more useful by finding the long blonde hair, the baker wanted her to continue the journey. He was indecisive throughout the story and displayed the relationship between people's goals and how it affects the actions they take or how it can change the way they think.

Actions of putting on different personalities were seen in The Circle when Mae was in the learning process of her job. She was adapting and quickly adopting a fake persona to fit in with her fellow brain-washed colleagues. This way of acting happens everyday, people will change how they think to fit in or to retrieve certain items. Now, being in college, it’s unquestionably evident that these ideals are apparent in high schools. People would always pretend to be friendly to access homework answers, a ride home from practices or even a piece of gum. It’s not often that the inner qualities of people are shown.