Review: Sweeney Todd

Back-to-back!  Another Tim Burton/Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter piece:  Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Plot:  Benjamin Barker was a barber in London who was falsely accused of a crime by a corrupt judge.  He has returned from his imprisonment to find his wife dead and his daughter adopted by the same judge.  He now goes by the name of Sweeney Todd, and returns to his previous trade, taking up residence over the pie shop on Mrs. Lovett.  Todd, aided by Mrs. Lovett, begins a murderous quest for vengeance, while Mrs. Lovett's pie business booms as a side effect...

Dark humor, definitely!!  It's a dark story - love, revenge, murder, cannibalistic meat pies - but it's treated with a lighter touch, so that the funny points come through and the macabre doesn't overwhelm.  I guess you could say, it's gory at a few points, but tastefully done.  It's not a suspense movie, designed to subtly frighten you, and it's not a horror movie bloodbath.  The blood is present, and necessary, but not the focus in most scenes - I guess that's the best way to describe it.

I like musicals, even dark ones.  And Sondheim does do great music and lyrics, even if they aren't always the cheeriest stories out there (West Side Story, anyone?).  But hey, I love Les Mis, and a lot of Andrew Lloyd Weber pieces too, so a musical doesn't need to be cheery for me.  Interesting side note - Sondheim and Weber share a birthday!  Anyways, I've been humming several of the songs this past week, since watching the film, so that's always a good sign.  Being a movie musical, it doesn't have the full catalog of songs ("The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" by the chorus is gone, for example, since they don't need the backstory sung when Burton can film it) and a few of the pieces have shorter arrangements, but still good.  Already knowing the story (we have a cast recording at home of the 1979 Broadway version with Angela Lansbury), "Not While I'm Around" was one of my favorites - not necessarily humm-able, but throat-catching.  I definitely enjoyed the character of Toby.

And just because Depp and Bonham Carter always work with Burton wasn't a guarantee that they'd have parts in this one - they both had quotes about having to audition for Sondheim before getting a role and how nerve-wracking it was!  They both do well with the songs, even in accent.  Not Tony award winning or operatic ranges, but still well done.  Side note - the accents are kept through the songs.  It makes the songs more genuine, not quite so surreal as musicals can be, but it does make the lyrics hard to follow sometimes.  Let's face it, Cockney isn't the most enunciated accent!

They may not have spectacular vocal ranges, but they portray the characters very well.  Sweeney Todd is a man falling apart, driven by his revenge.  And Depp plays this beautifully.  Like I said last week, he does crazy well.  Here, it's more a depressed, disintegrating sort of madness, not the manic sort that the Hatter was.  And Bonham Carter makes a lovely sort of strong fragileness, with a madness of her own.  The two of them really do carry the show!

Thinking of cast - uncredited cameo by Anthony Head (Buffy's Giles) as a citizen in the street talking to Todd.  Don't blink or you'll miss it :)

Oh, and stupid notes from the IMDB boards... several commented on Danny Elfman's absence from the Burton usuals on this piece.  Duh - it's a musical, the score is already written, and anything that needed adjusting to fit the movie can be done by Sondheim himself!  Silly question...

Overall: 4.5 of 5.  Dark, darkly funny, and several memorable numbers.  The actors did a great job bringing it to life.  Not an 'upper' of a movie though - be forewarned.  Revenge, madness, murder are more on the menu than cheery songs and happy endings.