Stephen Sondheim's Gory Opera is Given A Powerful Tim Burton Adaptation

Rating: 9/10 (11 October 2019)

There are words that pop up all the time when describing Tim Burton and his films: Kooky, Weird, Esoteric, Irreverent. They all fit. The man makes Tim Burton movies, and he's the only one who can. You might be forgiven for thinking that all Tim Burton makes are bizarre, deadpan, mad scientist entertainers. But then, along comes a film like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The Stephen Sondheim musical adaptation is a shockingly assured effort from the weirdo auteur. Extremely provocative in its violence and maturity, Sweeney Todd is a major achievement by Burton. Paired with truly great material, he makes the first of his films that I can confidently describe as powerful.
After being framed and exiled by the corrupt Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to Victorian London under the alias of Sweeney Todd to take revenge on the man who stole his wife and child from him. And what sounds like a straightforward revenge plot is then complicated by the arrival of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham-Carter), the pie shop owner who finds in Sweeney a devious partner in business and pleasure. Adapted from Stephen Sondheim's 1979 stage musical, Sweeney Todd is a story of ever-building darkness, of the gradual blackening of the soul into total despair. Sweeney Todd is one of Sondheim's most well-written musicals, not only in terms of music but of plot and character. There are rich themes and complex characters nestled within what is otherwise a booming musical extravaganza. And while Sondheim's themes are present on stage, they are even more potent in the film. Credit the performances foremostly. Johnny Depp plays Sweeney as a furnace of suppressed anger, distant to Mrs. Lovett, pinpoint-focused on revenge, and bursting with fury when the moment finally comes. Likewise, Bonham-Carter is brilliant in a role she was born to play. She is a delicate psychotic, preening for Todd's love while baking his victims into the Worst Pies in London. There are also professional, understated performances by Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall, and a standout appearance by Sacha Baron Cohen as the flamboyant showman with a darker offstage persona, Pirelli.
With the underscoring of an eloquent story to fall back on, Tim Burton is able to flex his filmmaking muscles. It's something we don't often see from Burton, who prefers to keep within his comfort zone of darkly funny mainstream-adjacent fare. With Sweeney Todd, his is forced to break out, and the result is all but perfection. He pulls Sondheim's lyrics inward. Focusing the camera on the characters, placing them in intimate "stages" and letting them sing with natural gravity. When he does break out of the pie shops and barber chairs, Burton sweeps the camera across the monochromatic beauty of Dante Ferritti's coal-black Londonian production design. And when violence comes, Burton handles it with over-the-top glee. Blood sprays in ridiculous fountains, and you can almost see Burton in the background giggling as we shriek in giddy horror. These moments, or the artful framings (of cracked glass or flames) are there to enhance the emotions of the story. They look incredible, but at the same time, they serve a purpose. There is a distinction that Burton rarely makes. With schlocky material to work from, he often only compensates with visuals. It's a very common criticism of Burton's to say he makes films that look great, but don't register on an emotional or intellectual level. Here, with a solid baseline, his visuals work in tandem with everything else, giving the story even more power.
Musically, the film also upstages the stage version. With a cast of untrained singers, the movie takes on a rougher, grittier life. The songs are not belted out, but sung gently and naturally. The approach gives the characters so much more authenticity. They don't turn from characters into singers every time the orchestra picks up. They are characters all the way through, expressing themselves through song in a way that enriches instead of distracting. And still, even with the pared down direction, Sweeney Todd manages to feel just as bombastic and roaring as the stage musical. From the opening explosion of organ music, the orchestral score is thunderously good. At the risk of sounding ignorant, I find the Sweeney Todd film to sound better, in its songs, arrangements, and scoring, than any other stage version I've seen. Almost all the runtime is dedicated to songs, and the way they roll into each other, from No Place Like London into Johanna and Pretty Women into My Friends, is musical genius.
Much of the credit for the success of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has to go to the original writer, Stephen Sondheim. It's a great story, a modern opera with a brilliant sense for storytelling through music. Sondheim is a certified genius when it comes to making this brand of mature, nourishing musical. And because Sondheim is so good, Tim Burton can relax. Burton doesn't push the material too far into his territory. He massages it, pumps it up with enough visual style to enhance its underlying ideas without detracting from it. Directing this musical would have been a high-wire act for any director, and that is why I find myself so shocked at how well Burton pulls it all off. He shows intelligence and skillful cinematic intuition, realizing that part of the thrill of Sweeney Todd is in its Grand Guignol excess, and part is its deeply felt characters. He plays both elements exactly right, knowing when to hold back and when to let loose. Tim Burton was certainly deserving of a best director Oscar nomination, and the film was clearly one of the five best of 2007. But alas, murderous barber musicals are not really the Academy's cup of tea. I'm sure ol' Timmy likes it that way.
93/100