Simply The Year's Best

Rating: Null/10 (3 February 2008)

This is without a doubt the best movie of 2007 and I am astonished that it hasn't been nominated for Best Picture. In fact, I think it's a travesty of justice. Yes, Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd / Benjamin Barker) is nominated and deservedly so, Depp is riveting here. But am I alone in being incredulous that director Tim Burton is not also nominated? The supporting cast is excellent too.
Admittedly Burton had pretty wonderful source material in the Stephen Sondheim musical, but his translation to the screen is masterful. The evocation of Dickensian London, the gloomy, almost overwhelming design (I hate to use Gothic yet again, but I guess that's what it is), the casting, the realization on screen of this story, is just perfection. I love it. To quickly summarize the story, Benjamin Barker was shunted off to the Australian penal colonies by a corrupt judge who desired his pretty wife and now holds his daughter captive. Returning some 15 years later as one Sweeney Todd, Barker swears revenge and with the help of his landlady, Mrs Lovett, starts dispatching the undeserving upper crust of London. Barber Barker slits their throats, Lovett makes them into tasty pies.
I have always been a bit of a sucker for musicals, because I think when well done they are a sublime form of pure entertainment. But this works on a whole different level. No singing and dancing in the rain here, but drama, passion, blood lust, revenge and wit. This is more opera than musical. My daughter, who is a musical theatre student and a bit of a Sondheim fan, told me they left out one of the best songs, but I can't say I noticed.
Johnny Depp is terrific in this role. His esoteric career choices (I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the other night, and it would be hard to get further from Sweeney Todd than that) show him to be a truly great and disciplined actor. He can create convincing characters and rise above his movie star status. Much has already been said about his singing, but I think it's just fine for the movie. No, it wouldn't work on stage, but this isn't the stage, that's the point. This is a movie, an entirely different medium, he doesn't need to be able to project his voice into the upper dress circle . Yes, he does sound like David Bowie as many reviewers have noted - which is interesting given that he comes from Kentucky and David Bowie is from Brixton - but Depp is a much better singer than Bowie is an actor.
Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs Lovett) could perhaps have done with some more singing lessons. She just about gets away with it, because she's a convincing actress, (I could well see her making Priest Pies), but I have to admit I couldn't hear all her words, and words are the essence of Sondheim. That is my only criticism really. Ed Sanders, the young actor who plays Toby, is very good and sings beautifully, Alan Rickman, long one of my favourite actors, gives another great performance as the nasty judge, and Timothy Spall is perfectly cast as Beadle Bamford. Also very good, is scene stealing Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli, Todd's first victim. A lovely over-the-top performance, which made me view him in a whole new light (I'd only seen him before as Borat.)
It's stylishly gory, highly dramatic, and very gripping. I saw it twice in the space of a couple of weeks and gained even more from second viewing. It will definitely join my DVD library. This is a film which will stand the test of time in a year of pretty indifferent material. I am at a loss as to why it's not been nominated for Best Picture.