Behind the blood-soaked curtain...

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2007)

Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's stage musical is less transposition than re-imagining; fraught with both heavy expectations and risky subject matter (murder, revenge, cannibalism, poverty---we're not talking "Mamma Mia" here), this cinematic offering had every reason to turn out a failure, or at least a massive letdown. Does the film fulfill the dark promise of its theatrical parent? Gloriously, the answer's yes.
The film's CG-heavy title sequence doesn't portend well (the glossy, too-perfect video-rendered look of the title imagery are a poor match for the grim subject matter), but once the story kicks in, Burton and company more than prove themselves worthy of Sondheim's masterwork. The film's opening shots of Sweeney Todd's arrival in London, are some of the more striking images Burton has created, the grimy details of the nineteenth-century British capital painted in every grimy soot-covered stroke on screen. This is, gladly, as far from a prettified or fairy-tail view of Victorian London as we're likely to get, right up there with the grungy neo-noir views of Victorian life of "From Hell", "The Prestige" or G.W. Pabst's "Threepenny Opera". In this world the gaslights illuminate a world one step away from Hell, the industrial fog of soot hiding monsters around every street corner, so no wonder Sweeney Todd seems right at home upon his arrival. The design team of Dante Ferreti (sets) and Colleen Atwood (costumes) plunge us into a discomforting, claustrophobic 19th-century London void of romance, the horrible beauty of an intricate landscape of harsh dirty concrete and cruel grey skies.
The most contentious area of speculation, the vocal performances of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter in the leads, are answered with mixed results. Depp's singing is steady and passionate, displaying an admirable willingness to put his voice front-and-center in Sondheim's unforgiving and challenging compositions which lay the singer bare to the needs of the narrative and the audience's perception of the central character. Sweeney's almost Brechtian connection to the spectator's view of the action in on display when he's the only character who gets solitary moments during which he seems in direct communication with the audience with this thoughts and feelings. Burton and Depp beautifully communicate this in the "Epiphany" number by opening the action into the street and choreographing Sweeney's action amongst the denizens of London who don't see him; psychologically the only ones aware of Sweeney's encroaching madness are the audience and Sweeney himself. It's a joyous celebration of deliberate homicidal determination, when all doubt falls away and Sweeney knows his place in this dismal world. Depp;s vocal stylings are spot-on, his only failure in the few moments when he's reaching for the end note on a search-and-destroy mission.
Helena Bonham-Carter's work is more problematic, as she doesn't possess the voice to pull off the material in its original form and the film's vocal arrangements barely give her any more margin for error. Her performance in the end does work for two reasons: first, she won't make anyone forget Angela Lansbury and she really doesn't try, working exclusively within the range of her own voice. Second, she imbues Mrs.Lovett with a sharp wit and cynical worldliness which goes a long, long way in leavening the show's dark ambiance. Bonham-Carter's reputation as a Merchant-Ivory "corset queen" is partially deserved, but she doesn't get near enough credit for how funny she can be (her asides in "Wings of the Dove" and "Welcome to Baghdad" show a sharp, distinct comic intelligence). Her willingness to lampoon her persona in costume pictures translates beautifully to the morally derelict, slovenly but calculating Mrs.Lovett, who as the (slightly) more mentally present half of the murderous equation anchors the story and reminds the viewer of the giddier joys of such a gruesome and dismal tale. For a moment, you actually believe that Lovett considers Sweeney and Tobias her "family" and there's a glimpse of the twisted romantic underneath the blood- soaked veneer of the cannibalistic pie-maker.
The real surprise here is Tim Burton, who confirms his ability as one of the most able and vibrant visual stylists in contemporary film. Burton's uneven output highlights the fact that he's a brilliant showman but unsure as a storyteller; his films are beautifully crafted but many of them drag by the second act, bogged down in visual histrionics and setpieces which dazzle the eye but stagnate the storyline ("Sleepy Hollow" being only one example of this; shoehorned into a protracted story line the film became draggy and tiring after the second act). Partnered with a stripped-down, lean screenplay by John Logan, Burton finds a perfect framework for his paintbrush, his visual extravagances disciplined by a demandingly sparse and clear-headed narrative. Referencing all manner of ghoulish artistic, theatrical and cinematic traditions including Grand Guinol, Hammer Horror, Mario Bava, and Edward Gory, Burton's every stroke keeps this horror show running efficiently. You can feel his sideshow-worthy glee at the chance to bring this story to the screen and this time his talents are completely attuned to the needs of Sondheim's horror show. If there is a false step here, it's that the film's pacing is too frenetic, lurching from one narrative point to the next almost as though Burton was concerned that the viewer's interest would wander for even a second. As it is the show's edited morsels (the show's numbers have been clipped to ten for the film) have barely a chance to digest in the viewer's mind before zipping to the next installment and the film's ending is more than abrupt.
In most respects it's a triumph, as Burton raises the film from the long shadow of the stage show and makes the story his own. It's as tasty a cinematic pie as any filmmakers could have made out of the fearsome, poisoned stew of the story of the Demon Barber.