The last decade hasn’t been particularly kind to Tim Burton fans. Outside of Big Fish, his films always have these amazing visuals covering some of the most empty and unsatisfying attempts at storytelling. With that said, Sweeney Todd is exactly the musical Burton fans have wished him to make. It’s a bloody mess of vengeance and lost love, full of throat-slitting mayhem. Based on a fictional character, and adapted from the Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim, the film more or less succeeds as much as it fails.
Burton’s usual players, longtime collaborator Johnny Depp and wife Helena Bonham Carter, star as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett respectively. Sweeney is a barber fresh off of a harsh prison sentence and returns to Fleet Street, the place he once lived happily with his wife and daughter, to seek revenge on the man who put him behind bars.
Lovett runs a meat pie shop downstairs from his old residence. You can only imagine where the ingredients come from once Todd is back home. She has a bit of crush on him, no matter how mad he presents himself, and desperately tries to assist him with his quest.
Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his snickering sidekick Beadle (Timothy Spall) are the targets of Sweeney’s obsession. They arranged the kidnapping of his wife and child all those years ago, right before they put him behind bars. His wife is no longer in the picture but his daughter now sits in a sort of her prison of her own, as Turpin keeps her locked away in her room, far from any other human companionship.
Being that Sweeney Todd is a musical, the plot unfolds by way of song. It helps out a bit as the plot really isn’t too deep or complicated to figure out but the music and lyrics aren’t all that inspiring. Sondheim’s musical work here fits the mood of Broadway rather perfectly, it just doesn’t mesh together well with the dreary world Burton created. Seeing Sweeney slit throat after throat, singing as the victim’s blood sprays everywhere, somehow feels like it would have been as macabre as it should have been had Danny Elfman worked his magic.
All the magic instead comes from Dante Ferretti’s production design. Old London is given the right amount of touches to give it the “dark pit” mood Sweeney labels it so often in song. Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski is no stranger to photographing these sorts of environments (see also Dark City and Pirates of the Caribbean) and his work here prospers as the best element of the film.
The third act of Sweeney Todd comes too fast while the first two acts took forever to get off the ground. It’s a bit of a conundrum… you want to like this musical more than it allows you to. The film strives for a greatness it never quite achieves but still manages to be slightly entertaining.
