Disney's top take on classic

Musicals don't come any more polished and provocative than Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, a magnificent mash-up of several of our most cherished fairytales refracted through a Freudian looking glass (specifically Bruno Bettelheim's ground- breaking study The Uses of Enchantment).

Along with the dizzying wit of the music and lyrics - "Life is so often unpleasant, you must know that as a peasant," Prince Charming sings to the Baker's Wife - Sondheim and Lapine have infused Into the Woods with so many ideas about the importance of both children and adults facing the chaos and confusion of the real world you find yourself thinking at the same time as humming along.

Indeed, it is so highly regarded for its sophistication and adult sensibility that when Disney announced it was making a movie version the musical's army of devotees feared they would soften and sweeten Into the Woods, removing the teeth from Sondheim and Lapine's classic in the way the family-friendly studio has always "de-fanged fairytales" (Bettelheim's big complaint about Disney).

I'm pleased to report Disney is not the Big Bad Mouse and Into the Woods has survived the encounter, with Rob Marshall's ravishing production largely faithful to the original Broadway show.

The narrator has been dropped, a major character lives instead of dies and Johnny Depp's Big Bad Wolf is not quite as lewd as the one in the stage version (though splendidly creepy in his own way). But you still feel the full force of its startlingly grown-up ideas about risk-taking, maturity and being careful about what you wish for (even more so because this thrillingly subversive update has been packaged by Disney itself).

Indeed, the dazzling opening number, in which Sondheim and Lapine introduce all the major characters and set up the plot, is so well handled by Marshall, so sensationally smooth, it feels as if it was originally conceived for the cinema.

The heart of the story is the Baker and his Wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) who are childless because of a curse put on their family line by their neighbour, the ugly old witch played by Meryl Streep.

The witch reveals to the couple the curse will be lifted and she will get her beauty back if by the chime of midnight in three days' time they obtain for her four things: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold.

This race against the clock takes the Baker and his Wife into the woods where they exchange magic beans for the cow Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) has been ordered to take to the market by his mother (Tracey Ullman), attempt to steal the cape worn by Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), snip off the hair of Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and beg Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) for a golden slipper.

Around this simple but effective premise swirls a series of subplots in which the characters are transformed by their time in the woods; that is, by their encounter with darkness and danger.

Most amusing is Little Red Riding Hood's meeting with the Big Bad Wolf on her way to her grandmother's house. "Look at that flesh, pink and plump, hello little girl," croons Depp's lascivious pimp-like wolf as he attempts to seduce Little Red Riding Hood from her path.

While the traditional versions of Little Red Riding Hood would see this as innocence asserting itself in the face of evil, Sondheim and Lapine's makeover has the girl cherishing her encounter with the Big Bad Wolf. "He showed me things, many beautiful things I hadn't thought to explore," she tells her rescuer, the Baker. "He made me feel excited, well, excited and scared."

Freudians will have a ball with the Little Red Riding Hood story, as they will with the trimming of Rapunzel's hair, Cinderella's stepsisters slicing up their feet to fit into her golden slipper (the original pre-Disney version beloved of Bettelheim) and Jack climbing the beanstalk and meeting an enormous woman ("And she gives you food and she gives you rest and she draws you close to her giant breast," he sings).

The performances are uniformly wonderful but special mention must be made of Streep, Blunt and Kendrick, whose characters have the most emotionally wrenching journeys and counterbalance the humour of Into the Woods with heart and emotion.

Streep's voice is just adequate but she brings so much power to her character you barely notice the odd strained note. Her rendition of Stay With Me, the witch's plea for her daughter Rapunzel to remain home - "Stay with me, the world is dark and wild, stay a child while you can be a child." - is heartbreakingly beautiful.

And the encounters of the Baker's Wife and Cinderella with Prince Charming (a very funny Chris Pine sending up every charming prince cliche in the book) will make women question every rom-com they've ever pined over. But, like Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, they have no regrets about losing their hearts to this aristocratic airhead.

Questions have been raised about Into the Woods being appropriate for children. However, this is the whole point of the musical - that children need to encounter dangerous things inside the safety of a bedtime story or movie.

As Little Red Riding Hood sings after being pulled from the stomach of the Big Bad Wolf by the Baker: "Do not put your faith in a cape and a hood; they will not protect you the way that they should."

But you still feel the full force of its startlingly grown-up ideas about risk-taking, maturity and being careful about what you wish for.