At Last - The Razor Swings Wide...And So Does The Musical!

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2007)

First of all, a note to the "Sweeney" purists among us, of which I thought I was one. A movie is NOT a Broadway musical and vice versa, so if you are coming to Tim Burton's rendering of SWEENEY TODD expecting to see a slavish recreation of the live theater version, go buy the DVD of the George Hearn/Angela Lansbury revival from the Eighties and stick to it. You'll be much happier than you will be with this version.
Having said that, now let us "attend the tale." I came away from seeing this a lot happier than I thought I would, and here's why: no one else could have or should have done this film except for Tim Burton. With his proclivity for all things Gothic and macabre, the material is a perfect fit, and he doesn't waste one iota of the opportunity. I can already see that this has a firm lock on many technical Oscar awards, because everything from Dante Ferretti's production design to Colleen Atwood's costumes are darkly scrumptious. The grit, grime and grue of Victorian Era London only hinted at in musical pieces like OLIVER! (and barely mentioned in MARY POPPINS) gets the 'full monty' here. These are the same streets that would also give birth to Jack The Ripper...
Employing the talents of musical director/conductor Paul Gemignani and arranger Jonathan Tunick from the original show is probably the second best move from Burton and the producers, because the orchestrations are as lush to the ears as the visuals are to the eyes. Another musical may be made that looks and sounds this good translated to the screen, but it won't be this year, and probably not in the next one, either.
Now for the songs: at least a good third of the tunes are missing, and many will lament the absence of "The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd", although the theme is played over the stunning main title sequence. All of the ensemble pieces have been excised and many of the core songs have been shortened, but it's all for a very good, logical reason. These tunes set the stage, the tone and drive the narrative, drawing the kind of pictures the audience in live theater would need to be transported to this time and place with these characters. With movie-making this meticulously good, this is unnecessary. You can almost smell the mud and slime on the cobblestones, hear the racket coming from the many pubs and peer into the dark back alleyways...the time and place are more than firmly established. Unlike the stage version, it's all about the characters and here we get to know them more intimately than ever before.
The vocal performances don't need to be as bombastic as they are in previous versions...When you're dealing with a ten-foot wide screen, there's no need to project back into the "cheap seats." So, with that in mind, who comes off best and who doesn't?
Johnny Depp, as would be expected, leads the way as Sweeney. He sings in a register much higher than the part calls for, but he acts the living hell out of the part, so this is a minor quibble. His is a Sweeney who wears the ravages of injustice and betrayal like an overcoat, one that is only discarded once his "friends" are finally in his hands. He's said that he will never do a singing role again. More's the pity, but even if he doesn't, he can consider this turn as one of the best of his career, if not THE best.
Helena Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett is good enough to hold up in this production, but it seems as if all the loopy, twisted, sanguine JOY has been sucked out of the role. Mrs. Lovett is the love-starved, amoral and more-than-slightly bent comic relief, and it's a pity that Carter couldn't access that more. I was much more concerned with that than her singing ability or lack thereof.
Sacha Baron Cohen knew EXACTLY what to do with Adolfo Pirelli, and hits his comical and sinister turn dead on. If everything else about this movie had been dreadful, he would've made it all worth it just by himself.
Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall are my new heroes. Spall is every bit as foppishly, fawningly nasty as Beadle Bamford should be. And I expected no less than perfection in villainy from Rickman, who's re-written the book on it in the past two or three decades. But SINGING? I wasn't expecting that, and what a wonderful surprise it was.
Jamie Campbell Bower and Jayne Wisener as Anthony and Johanna, respectively, are refreshingly winsome in their roles - innocents just trying not to get devoured by darkness. It's a pity that most of their meatier numbers are cut, but here it makes sense. They are nothing more than convenient cogs in Sweeney's malevolent machine of vengeance, and as such are required to do little more than serve their purpose.
One of the main performers that will have tongues wagging is Ed Sanders as Tobias Ragg. A stunning combination of both Mark Lester's and Jack Wild's characters in the movie version of OLIVER!, he is age-appropriate, but hardened, seasoned and wise beyond his years, like many of the real children described in the writings of Dickens, and the unfiltered account of Oliver Twist softened by the Broadway version. His delivery of "Not While I'm Around" may be one of the most poignant yet, and the dramatic arc of his character feels exactly right up to the shocking, bitter end.
I hereby pronounce multiple viewings of SWEENEY TODD as essential, if only for myself, because I know there's a lot I missed the first time, as I'm sure Tim Burton planned. And I won't mind uncovering even more of the details and dark pleasures of this bracing reinterpretation of Sondheim's career-defining work.