Powerful Combination of Sondheim and Burton Makes the Demon Barber Come to Bloody Life

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2007)

It's been nearly thirty years since a Stephen Sondheim musical has been translated from Broadway to the big screen (the last time was 1978's dismal "A Little Night Music" starring Elizabeth Taylor), and judging from the previews of this dark 2007 musical, the producers don't seem very anxious to publicize the fact that most of this film is sung in verse. That's too bad because it's really Sondheim's evocative and powerfully haunting music that drives and ironically humanizes the chilling storyline. It also helps to have director Tim Burton's visionary talent guiding this audacious venture since the horrific and heartrending subject matter ideally suits his idiosyncratic film-making style. I was fortunate enough to see the original 1979 Broadway production with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, and screenwriter John Logan does an admirable job of streamlining the original musical to the core story of Sweeney's relentless vengeance.
Sondheim-loving purists may balk at the fact that certain characters are gone in the screen version, as well as several songs with some of the remaining score switched around from one character's voice to another to serve distinctly different purposes in the story. It's also true that Burton does not hold back on what is an uncompromising gore-fest, but luckily, he doesn't dwell on the barber's bloody acts. Instead, he fixates on establishing the moody, nearly colorless atmosphere of nineteenth-century London and how the key characters become entrenched in the pervasive grayness of an urban purgatory from which no one can escape. All the production values on display are top-notch with stellar work from cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (all three "Pirates of the Caribbean" films), production designer Dante Ferretti ("Gangs of New York") and costume designer Colleen Atwood ("Memoirs of a Geisha"). The technical virtues of this production are undeniable even if it does become somewhat wearing to experience the constant dankness.
Burton did not venture far in casting the leads since his frequent leading man Johnny Depp plays the title role and the director's domestic partner Helena Bonham Carter is the smitten Mrs. Lovett. Both make their roles work within the contours of their recognizable screen personas. Depp lends his almost feline-like brand of menace to a role more often played by more robust, operatic-style actor-singers a decade or so older, while Carter eschews Lansbury's comically buffoonish performance for a more sinewy, cynical approach. Their singing may lack range and nuance, prerequisites for mastering Sondheim's complex lyrics, but they perform with vigor and certainly within character. Alan Rickman is his usual villainous self as Judge Turpin, whose act of jealousy provides the impetus for the blood-soaked plot; and in genuine callow fashion, Jamie Campbell Bower plays the aptly named sailor, Anthony Hope, the devoted suitor of Johanna, Sweeney's long-lost daughter now Turpin's ward. Orchestrated by Jonathan Tunick, the soundtrack does not suffer for the marginality of the star voices, as he brings the full potency and epic grandeur of Sondheim's music to the fore.
Several of the musical numbers are quite effective. There is "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir", which introduces Sweeney's preening competitor, Adolfo Pirelli (a nice bravura turn by Borat himself, Sacha Baron Cohen), at a medicine sideshow accompanied by a gin-loving orphan named Toby (affectingly played by Ed Sanders), who becomes intractably involved with Sweeney's and Mrs. Lovett's affairs. Bower sings the ballad, "Johanna", with proper yearning as the purity of his intentions is contrasted sharply with Sweeney's murderous deeds. Depp gets his moment in the sun with "Epiphany", in which he spells out the inevitably tragic fate of London under his switchblade, and he duets with a tentative Rickman on the haunting "Pretty Women". My favorite ballad from the show, "Not While I'm Around", has been turned into a lullaby Mrs. Lovett sings to Toby, and while Carter sings with conviction, she is actually at her best on the lighter numbers like the self-effacing "The Worst Pies in London", the deceptively coy "A Little Priest", and the sunny "By the Sea", which cues the film's only splash of life-affirming color. But above all else, this film is a triumph of Sondheim's musical genius and Burton's craftsmanship.