Welcome back to my very, very long string of Tim Burton reviews! Today we’ll be taking a look at one of my all-time favorites, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street! I reviewed this film briefly in my “31 Days of Horror” article I did last October. It isn’t really a horror film, but it does have some frightening (and certainly thrilling) sequences littered throughout the film. Adapted from the Sondheim musical of the same name, Sweeney Todd tells the tale of barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), a man wrongly accused of a crime, who, after returning to England, vows to exact revenge on the man who ruined his life, Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). With the help of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), Barker works his way up to Turpin by brutally slicing the throats of any customer that comes in for a shave in his barbershop, the bodies dispensed and ground up into Mrs. Lovett’s meat pies.
I want to get my problem with this movie out of the way, because aside from this gripe, the film is spectacular. My issue is unfortunately kind of a big one, and it’s the ending. For those who haven’t seen the film, SPOILER WARNING. The film ends with Barker coming to the realization that the woman he had just slaughtered was his wife Lucy, presumed to be dead early on in the film. Barker believed his wife was dead based on information given by Mrs. Lovett. However, Lovett is not-so-secretly in love with Barker and lied, hoping that one day the pair could get married. In his rage, Barker murders Mrs. Lovett by throwing her into the oven. He mourns his wife and allows Toby, the young boy that viewed Lovett as a mother figure, to slit his throat.
However, while this is going on, there’s a subplot that’s never entirely resolved. It’s implied, but it’s never shown. Over the course of the film, a man named Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) wishes to be with Barker’s daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener). Barker approves of Anthony, who help him get back to London. After rescuing Johanna from an insane asylum, Anthony drops her off at the barbershop while he finds a carriage. After brutally murdering Turpin, Barker finds his daughter hiding in a trunk, but does not recognize her. Before he gets a chance to slay her, however, he hears Mrs. Lovett’s screams from the basement. It’s assumed that after Barker is killed that Johanna and Anthony escape, but it’s never shown and I really wanted the film to follow up on the events that occurred after Barker’s death.
The rest of the film is absolutely amazing. Apart from the ending, every minute is crafted so well and adapted to film wonderfully. The scenery is more than enough to convince viewers that this was what London looked like in 1846, with colors that look both dreary and eerily realistic. The music is also phenomenal. From Barker’s opening song “No Place Like London” to Toby’s heartwarming “Not While I’m Around”, the film’s original soundtrack is a tremendous feat, performed surprisingly good by the cast. Good luck getting these out of your head.
The acting is really, really good. Depp conveys the emotion in Barker’s character so well, and while there is humor littered throughout the dialogue, the story itself is extremely tragic and drains you of your emotions when you see these characters’ backstories and their hopes and dreams for the future. The bleak aesthetic only adds to the amount of depth created and it works so well. On the same subject, these characters are developed so well, with a really astounding script that adds layer after layer of depth to them.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is also really well-directed. Never in the film does a camera angle feel out of place in a scene.
Overall, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is one of Tim Burton’s best work. With phenomenal music, writing, story, the film is an astounding work of art, but is let down by an ending that doesn’t tie up some loose ends left hanging. I’m going to give the film an A.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street stars Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Jayne Wisener, Sacha Baron Cohen, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jamie Campbell Bower, Ed Sanders. Directed by Tim Burton.
