Another old review

Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd has director Tim Burton in full Gothic Horror mode, complete with fog, monsters and fountains of blood. As ever with Burton, the picture looks magnificent; the scarlet of Todd’s victims leaps out amid a Victorian landscape in shades of grey. Again, though, as ever with Burton, the plot seems subsidiary to the look of the thing; there is a sense of searching for motivations, having already decided that Todd will kill people, and the sickly sweet love affair between Anthony and Joanna is an odd adjunct to a film which delights in its darkness.

The film is so over the top, though, that these quibbles hardly detract from the fun. The music, and the urgent, spoken singing style carry the audience along at a pace, and the fact that the exchanges approach dialogue excuses the lack of memorable tunes – with the notable exception of ‘Try the priest’, which is filled with delightful wordplay and a memorable chorus.

Helena Bonham Carter is magnificent, giving a simultaneously tender and cavorting performance as Mrs Lovett, the lonely pie shop owner who becomes Todd’s accomplice in the hope of getting her to love him. Depp also gives a solid performance in the lead role, although he has yet to rid himself of all of Captain Jack’s mannerisms, whilst Rickman enjoys playing a sinister Judge Turpin and Timothy Spall is convincingly brutal and simpering as Beadle Bamford. None of them are fantastic vocalists, but all are perfectly competent for the style.

‘Sweeney Todd’ is pure melodrama, and those unable to submerge themselves in the current of imagery and emotion will call this a silly and insubstantial film. It certainly is silly - but it is good fun.