about the juiciest, bloodiest good/sad musical time you'll have this year

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 2007)

With Sweeney Todd, one of the most notorious (and acclaimed) stories to come out of 19th century London England, and later as a much more acclaimed musical from Stephen Soundheim, Tim Burton crafts a masterpiece of the macabre, a work full of harsh, visceral drama, a sinister look to the picture which only once or twice takes an escape to brighter (more elusive) pastures, and even pitch-black humor, the kind that isn't fit for the gallows but a slice of a razor to a horrible demise at the meat-grinder. It's also a sad film, a deep sorrow that pulses in nearly every frame that Johnny Depp occupies as Benjamin Barker-turned-Sweeney Todd which pervades the wretched vengeance that he seeks following his inexcusable detachment from his wife and daughter via Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). Burton here, more than ever I might wager, deals with punishment and evil, as well as what it means to be an anti-hero (if one could call a "Demon Barber" as such), and as well what a real cold-blooded villain is.
The latter might be considered, more-so than Mr. T, in the form of Mrs. Lovett, who runs the place below where Mr. Barker used to run his barbershop, featuring the "Worst Meat-Pies in London." Following a savage, quick death of a character, she comes up with the idea to hide the body, and thus also continue a lucrative profit- take the bodies that Todd slices open whilst getting their shave, and grinding them into meat pies for a whole new cult of a crowd, who end up flocking to for such bloody-good (some pun intended) culinary delights. Meantime there's a subplot involving the Judge, Todd's long lost daughter Joanna, and a young man who has fallen in love with her- and her with him- from behind the prison of her betrothed. And there's also a child, Toby (talented young Ed Sanders), who becomes quasi-orphaned and starts to work at the meat-pie establishment. Innocence, of course, is something so fragile it can break in an instant.
Almost 80% of the film, I should mention, is sung by the actors. And while not in a kind of complete and utter show-stopping manner that is more common for Broadway, they take the completely superb songs, devilish, pondering, contemplating, scheming, and full of longing (there's much more in the lyrics than one would expect) and make them their own. It's a given the young Joanna and Anthony get the conventional song of young, forbidden love, but aside from that Soundheim breaks open the vein, so to speak, of the melodrama inherent in a horror story like the one here. There's even a bleak streak of humor to the proceedings, be it an extended song that distracts Pirelli (perfect comic timing by Sascha Baron Cohen as an Italian with a secret), or the juxtaposition of Todd's various killings and a touching tune, or just Mrs. Lovett's descriptions of which people to take for the kill. With music and word Soundheim's tale of tragic mayhem is not without a whole lot of entertainment value, more than one not familiar with the stage version would expect. I tapped my fingers whilst blood flowed and dark looks gleamed through the dark color palette.
Now, taking into account Burton's knack at surprise (and precise) casting choices- Depp exceeds greatly in his first musical role, giving moments of subtly in just the deadened expression on his eyes while his two-dimensional frame consumes him; Carter has the best role to fill in the main lot of characters, as someone seemingly pleasant in her dirty Dickens way but also far more evil than she'll let on; Rickman, for ever little word he utters, is savage in having whatever he can by hook or by crook- it should be noted how superlative Burton matches technique with the source material. It's such good directing where, as with Nightmare Before Christmas (only here arguably more operatic), we get wrapped up in what should be an escapist experience of a musical with vast sets and beautifully grungy 19th century costumes and (typically) Gothic makeup. It's a twisted time and place of the slums of London, and Burton and his DP supplant that look of despair, where we'll see for an instant (satirically of course) a look at paradise on a beach in the future, or a glimpse into the past. But there's also a fully rounded human experience going on too, where it all fits in the context where it's set: realistic it isn't entirely, but everything emotionally feels on-target.
One more note of the obvious, if you've already heard from critics: it contains the most graphic bloodshed of any musical I've ever seen, or even in Burton's oeuvre (and this is from countless beheaded folk in Sleepy Hollow talking). It flows as if Alexander de Large from Clockwork Orange were in charge of special neck F/X. And it's certainly not for the kiddies who flocked to Charlie and the Cholocate Factory or Pee Wee. Sweeney Todd is gruesome, but with a purpose: Burton and Soundheim have made a testament to the inescapable wrath of vengeance unyielded, where figures from the past, no matter how close, will get in the path of destruction, and terror is always up behind you, cleaning your face, giving one quick swipe as if by catharsis. I loved it.