Sweeney Todd Review

Sweeney Todd: A Story of the ‘Bloody’ Good Revenge


By Heain Lee


The musical scores of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd sound very dissonant at first, however, as it continues, those dissonant cords start play in a perfect, yet eerie harmony. Tim Burton, teamed up with Johnny Depp, the unofficial ‘persona’ for Burton from their previous works such as Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow, and Helena Bonham Carter of the Corpse Bride and Big Fish, once again created an eerie masterpiece dripping in blood; the adaptation of Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd - the Demon Barber of the Fleet Street. From the opening scene, the screen version of Sweeney Todd is full of Burton’s brilliance. As Sweeny Todd (played by Depp) walks to Mrs. Lovett’s Shop on the Fleet Street upon his arrival in London, the camera travels – more like floats – along the narrow streets of London, and the dark city we see looks very much like a cartoon.

Pale, dry and detached from everything with a dark sense of humor, Johnny Depp transforms himself into the perfect Mr. Todd from the musical. In the scene where Todd reunites with his blades, which he calls ‘his friends’, Depp sings with the glare as if he is looking at a real lover or a friend and Mrs. Lovett savors the lyrics imagining Todd confessing his undying love for her. Throughout the movie, Todd and Lovett often sing the same song yet it means two totally different things. Burton does a splendid job capturing this ‘conflict’ on screen.
Helena Bonham Carter, on the other hand, created a whole new Mrs. Lovett through her superb acting on screen. The new Mrs. Lovett is a dreamer and a lover. The scene where she daydreams and sings about her their happy future together next to Todd who has a blank look on his face is like seeing the couple from the Corpse Bride in real life. In the score ‘Not While I’m Around,’ Mrs. Lovett and Toby shares a long embrace that makes them appear like a mother and a son, but at the same time like lovers. This ambiguous embrace and the pretty singing voice of little Toby is enough to give anyone a chill up and down one’s spine.

The reason why Sweeney Todd is so eerie is not so much because of all the blood we see - as the matter of fact, the obviously fake blood squirting everywhere is so unreal that it looks animated – but because of the motive behind all the killing and the emotional detachment. The use of fake flood allows Burton to capture the murder to the very last moment, which elevates its brutality - not necessarily to the eyes of the audience but the effect of it. Tim Burton not only did a good job adopting a famous musical into a film, but took one step further and created his own Burton’s Sweeney Todd. A perfect harmony created by contrasting concepts like horror/murder story and humor/comedy dazzles the audience for two hours, just like Sondheim’s dissonant musical scores. Seeing familiar actors like Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman singing is a pleasant surprise – they all did a good job - and the great costumes are not to be missed!