Sondheim and Love

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2007)

Sondheim's musical, with Angela Lansbury as the quirky Mrs. Lovett and George Hearn as the barber, Sweeney Todd, (also Len Cariou, on Broadway), is near and dear to my heart. I saw the show with Patti Lupone and George Hearn in concert and fell in love with the massive wonder of murder made hilarious.
Tim Burton also, is as near and dear to my heart as Sondheim, but, I was weary of his involvement with this project, especially since he was using vocally untrained actors for a very demanding musical. BUT I must say, I loved all the dramatic AND musical performances. Depp, Bonham Carter, Rickman, and Baron Cohen blew me away. I shared the feeling that "Borat" in Sweeney Todd was a bit of a stretch, but he made the role his. His big acting was perfect as the comic villain. I believe Sondheim oversaw the casting, which may have affected the brilliance of all their performances.
The reason this movie gets an 8 and not a 10 from me, a die-hard Burton AND Sondheim fan...are the nuances, of course. For those of you not familiar with the musical, it won't be an issue at all. I felt the parts cut were a great loss. "Kiss Me", "Ah Miss" were cut, and they are both ballads sung by Johanna and Antony. I felt they were denied a great deal of dimension by the elimination of their songs. I was VERY relieved that they did not cut, "Green Finch, Linette Bird". Also, parts were cut out that stole dimension from Sweeney himself, but I must say that Depp did an amazing job in portraying a troubled man :P. For the first time I was afraid of him. However, I found Sweeney much more "emotionally approachable" on stage than I did in the movie. I found myself disgusted with him, (understandable considering his 'profession'), but that didn't happen when I saw it on stage. I felt a great deal more sympathy for Sweeney off the big screen. There is LOTS of blood. Streams of it.
All in all, I am not too disappointed. But, I definitely prefer the stage version.