As goes a favorite Christmas week tradition at our house, I was in charge of picking the movies we’d traipse off to the mall to see while everyone else was doing frantic last-minute shopping. “Sweeney Todd is first on the list,” I told my husband. Who could blame him for raising an eyebrow? Tim Burton’s adaptation of the bloodiest musical in the history of American theater is unquestionably an odd choice in a season synonymous with sugarplums, mistletoe and joyous conviviality.
The easy answer, of course, is that - despite being several decades older than the targeted demographic – I’ve become a full fledged Deppster. (Why else would I have a life-size cutout of Captain Jack Sparrow in my home office?) When I first heard that he’d been signed to play the villainous Demon Barber of Fleet Street, however, I had my doubts. Having enjoyed the privilege of seeing Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury in the Broadway version, it was a stretch to picture my favorite rum-soaked pirate maniacally slashing his way into a Dickensian urban legend. That and the fact that much was said about him not even being a singer.
A quirky musical of this ilk, though, places a higher premium on actors who can carry a passable tune as opposed to operatic personalities who don’t know the first thing about how to deliver lines of dialogue. When one adds to the mix the casting of Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman – neither of whom are known for their lyrical talents – some intriguing fare unfolds that turns out to be bloody entertaining.
For those unfamiliar with the premise of mayhem run amok in early 19th century London, the notion of a grief-stricken barber bent on revenge first appeared in a penny dreadful under the title The String of Pearls: A Romance. Its author, Thomas Peckett Prest, had a fondness for spinning snippets of various gruesome crimes reported in the newspaper and padding the plots out with macabre details of his own. While historians dismiss the existence of a real life persona named Sweeney Todd, there’s no question but that the urban squalor, corruption, poverty and vocational bleakness of the era prompted many a desperate soul to take matters into his or her own hands. Couple this with the perceived expendability of the human soul and you have a table that is well set for the likes of the barber and his enterprising landlady to slice and dice their way to fortune and popularity.
When the movie opens, Benjamin Barker (soon to be known as Sweeney Todd) is returning to the city of his ruination with only one goal on his mind – to kill the judge who sent him to prison on a phony charge, raped his wife, and abducted his baby girl, Johanna. Fifteen years as a convict in Australia has not imbued Barker with a congenial attitude toward his fellow man. Yet even his glowering demeanor is not enough to scare off his fellow shipmate and rescuer, Anthony Hope. As his last name implies, Anthony is optimistic that they can become fast friends. In a perfect world, Anthony would even welcome him as a father-in-law, for the first young woman he manages to lay eyes on as he wanders the city is none other than Sweeney’s daughter, the evil Judge Turpin’s hostage ward.
Romance might also be in the cards for Sweeney, though he is loathe to play the hand that his slatternly but wistfully sincere landlady, Mrs. Lovett, is eager to offer him. Here’s a woman who probably coveted her upstairs neighbor even when he was happily married. That he’s now a brooding widower looking for a place to hang out a shingle is a tasty invitation she can’t refuse. Patience is on her side, she rationalizes, artfully omitting the one pesky little detail that would change the entire equation; specifically, Mrs. Barker didn’t exactly die when she drank poison.
Moviegoers who might shy away from a flick that’s all about slitting throats of unwitting victims can take heart in the almost cartoonish nature of the blood spurts. The here-we-go-again nature of death-by-razor holds few surprises after the first one (Sacha Baron Cohen as Todd’s evil rival) and the humorous underscore of some of the songs tempers the much-touted gore level. Cinematically, it’s quintessential Burton genius that the only splashes of bright color against an otherwise black and grey backdrop are (1) whenever Sweeney dispatches another victim and (2) when we’re witnessing Sweeney’s happier past or Mrs. Lovett’s loopy expectations of a copasetic future by the sea with her dispassionate partner in crime.
The script faithfully follows the stage version to the letter, and the songs themselves are well executed by Depp and Bonham Carter. Depp’s dark eyes speak volumes of Sweeney’s tortured psyche and violent fervor to exact justice in an unjust world. This is a character who doesn’t live his life in half-steps and the feline agility with which Depp moves from one scene to the next conveys the dangerous energy and lethal power that lies coiled just beneath the surface. An unabashed whimsicality ensues when he and Bonham Carter observe the outside world’s pedestrian foot traffic as clueless sandwich boards for potential entrees.
Bonham Carter – quite a departure from the matronly Mrs. Lovett portrayed by Lansbury – is both seductive and sleazy at the same time. She is, by every definition, a survivor in bitterly hard times. Her disenchantment about being the owner of the worst meat pie shop in London, however, hasn’t jaded her into thinking that life and true love have passed her by. One can’t help but believe that a good scrubbing and a better wardrobe would make her turn heads on any English street.
What’s most intriguing about her, however, is that her innate confidence belies her exterior trappings and is what compels her to easily envision a marriage to Sweeney and motherhood to her adoring young apprentice, Tobias. When her shop suddenly becomes the equivalent of a trendy bistro (owing to its new secret ingredients), she and Sweeney are elevated to anti-heroes, cultish protagonists who almost seem good in comparison to Sweeney’s arch enemy, Turpin, and his slimy henchman, Beadle Bamford.
As villains go, it’s hard to beat the likes of Rickman. Even when he goes into “high thug” mode, he delivers his threats with such wonderful diction and smarmy charisma that one can’t help but smile. When questioned whether he believes a young felon is deserving of death by hanging, Turpin shrugs it off with the comment that the lad is obviously guilty of something. When his pretty ward rejects him and announces that she’s going to run off with the besotted Anthony, his reaction is to pack her off to the nearest asylum until she learns to appreciate him. To cross a man of Turpin’s character is not advised. Nor is it advised to seek a shave from a certain barber with a vendetta.
At the end of the day, how thin is the line between Turpin’s casual indifference to the law and Sweeney’s resolve to make all men pay for the heinous crime of one of them? The film advances the supposition that a bit of Sweeney and Turpin exists in us all; it is the external factors and temptations that determine whether we will ultimately find redemption in the end. In the final frames, a remorseful and anguished Sweeney offers his own neck up to justice but, in doing so, provides the devil with yet another soul.
It’s a juicy film that clicks on all levels and one that is not soon forgotten.