Bloody brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2008)

I knew nothing of the Stephen Sondhiem musical 'Sweeney Todd' other than that it existed and so I was able to go and see this film adaptation without any preconceived ideas of how it should sound. Like most people, I suspect, I was going to see it because it is another Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration and those are always worth watching. I expected to enjoy the film. What I didn't expect was to be so utterly blown away with it. I wanted to right back into the cinema and watch it again as soon as it had finished.
Everyone in the movie excels themselves - Helena Bohnam Carter as Mrs Lovett, while utterly insane, is actually really quite lovely. Her unrequited love for Sweeney Todd is heartbreaking and her song 'By The Sea' where she imagines that she and the man who is helping her make pies out of people can live a happy and normal life is both hilarious (I defy anyone to watch Johnny Depp throughout this song and not laugh out loud) and deeply touching. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this happy ending will quite simply never be. The rest of the supporting cast is fantastic too.
Really, though, this film belongs to Johnny Depp. His Sweeney Todd is a deeply tortured soul, quiet, totally intent and focused on his goal to the exclusion of everything else. There isn't a scene where the pain and heartache of the past fifteen years is not etched across his pale face. Despite the fact that he is mad with his desire for revenge and you should want him to get his comeuppance, you want him to get to Judge Turpin, you want him to be free from the pain of his past. His singing, while by no means professional, is full of heart and is at times achingly beautiful - where he sings the tender song 'Johanna' about his lost daughter all the while slitting the throats of his unwitting victims is almost too much to bear - not because of the gallons of blood, but because here is a man so totally crippled by his hatred not only for the man who sent him away but the world in general. From his first appearance on screen, spitting bile, to the quiet acceptance of his fate at the end of the film, Depp is electrifying.
I know people who have been put off seeing this because it's a musical, but it doesn't take long for you to forget that and just be completely entranced by the performances. It would be no exaggeration to say this is now my favourite film and even after umpteen listens to the soundtrack, I have yet to tire of it. Absolutely sublime.