strange choices impede perfection

Rating: 8/10 (12 April 2008)

I may be unfair because I've seen the play in production five times and seen the DVD version of the Broadway (with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn) production at least thirty, and for that reason alone, I may be averse to any little deviation from the play proper, but I lament first and foremost the cutting of the epic chorus ("Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd") which sets the mood so eminently. Burton could have done it on the soundtrack only, if he didn't want the singers in the show. Apart from that cut, I miss the small recap duet between Anthony and Johanna just before disaster strikes near the end of the play.
But mainly, the voices are unsuited for the production. I remember seeing a masterclass with Sondheim once in which a couple of his songs were performed first by singers and then by actors, and the actors clearly stole the show, so it's not a matter of Depp and Bonham-Carter not being able to sing the difficult Sondheim-stuff. Their acting is brilliant. It's a matter of them singing practically all the songs as though their windpipes had been slit, without energy at all, reminiscent of a latter-day Billie Holiday, heavily sedated. This sort of marred my pleasure at the movie which is otherwise a visual treat and Burton (as you'd expect) going over every conceivable top in all-out carnage.
Usually I'm in favor of film rather than theater, and - as I started out by saying - I may be prejudiced by my familiarity with the play, but what worked so well for the play was its Brechtian epic theater style: the actors showed their characters rather than actually played them. In the film, we get great acting, but it's at the expense of the story telling itself. We lose sight of the merciless plot grinding its characters to dust.
In short: the play really scared me, the movie did not. But it's a pretty lush production, all the same.