You’ll have to pardon me if my excitement is quite noticeably more palpable than usual, but my inner 10 year old self is jumping for joy at the opportunity to rewatch and review one of my absolute favourite films of all time. Directed by Tim Burton and released in 2007, this adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was quite the revelation to me when I was far, far too young to watch it, and to this day I firmly believe no one else has or ever will adapt a stage musical to film as perfectly as Burton has done here.
Based on the 1979 Broadway musical written and composed by Hugh Wheeler and the late Stephen Sondheim respectively, the film stars Johnny Depp as the infamous vengeful barber whose urban legend has haunted London for almost two centuries. Unlike the crazed, wild-faced performance by Len Cariou in the musical’s first run — which henceforth influenced his later replacements — Depp instead portrays Todd in a much more subtle, brooding manner befitting Burton’s iconic Gothic style and adding much more of a pitiful vulnerability to the character never seen prior; this man has been wrongfully exiled for 15 years only to come home to a dead wife and an imprisoned daughter, and not only is he enraged about it — he’s hurt, and it shows. Something else notable about this iteration is the way he looks: typically portrayed as a floppy-haired older man, costume designer Colleen Atwood instead clearly takes inspiration from Dave Vanian of The Damned, giving Todd his now-iconic “skunk hair” and white streak to convey a sickly, yet somehow still youthful appearance that may subconsciously elicit more sympathy from the audience.
Depp also notably had never sung in a piece of media before, going as far as to publicly say he “hates singing” and having a stand-in dub his singing performances in John Waters’ 1990 film Cry Baby. Despite this, Depp can not only firmly hold a tune as Mr Todd, but he can do it whilst both holding a very convincing gritty Cockney accent and conveying exactly the emotion he needs to without going over-the-top. Depp’s singing style, much like his physical performance, is significantly more subdued than the almost operatic style of his predecessors on the stage. When he sings, it feels far more of a brooding inner monologue to himself than a performance for the audience or characters around him, a choice which I find more than fitting for the grungy, Gothic London landscape that Burton crafted, encapsulating exactly the level of isolation, loneliness and rejection of affection the character experiences throughout the narrative. As someone who has always found musical films unbearable, Sweeney Todd very often does not feel like a musical even when an ensemble is belting right in front of you, and I adore that.
If you are a fan of musicals, definitely give it a watch. If you hate musicals, give it a watch anyway; it is undoubtedly one of the greatest — if not the greatest — musical adaptations ever made, and it may surprise you how much you end up enjoying it.
I, of course, also have to also discuss the performance of Depp’s co-star, Helena Bonham Carter, as Mrs Lovett, Todd’s eccentric and infatuated partner in crime. Although the frequency of her collaborations with Depp and Burton were once something of an in-joke amongst fans, I honestly cannot imagine anyone else portraying this role with such perfection — I would even go as far as to say it’s almost as if Carter was born for the part, a claim she herself seems to agree with as she had apparently always dreamed of some day playing Lovett. Carter never fails to execute the exact precise tone the scene calls for, as if Lovett herself realises she is in a darkly comedic musical and is merely playing along with the circumstances thrown at her; with a much, much more subdued and deadpan performance than that of Angela Lansbury in the original 1979 run, Carter also manages the rather difficult task of making Lovett somewhat sympathetic — a woman quite literally madly in love with a man who will never spare her a second glance, who dreams of a normal life with him and the orphaned boy she kindly takes in as her own… only to destroy everything through a series of her own decisions. While we don’t all (hopefully) cope with it by feeding the customers of our bakeries human remains, I think a lot of us have experienced such dreadful yearning and can find something to relate to in Carter’s performance. Despite her often unsettling demeanour, Carter’s Lovett feels real, like the lady across the street any British person could get caught up chatting to, and that is quite the achievement.
Something I feel doesn’t get discussed enough in regards to musical adaptations is the manner in which the songs are actually incorporated into the narrative; in Sweeney Todd, the songs never feel sudden or awkward as I often find with most other musicals. There is very rarely a moment wherein characters ‘randomly burst into song,’ as the accompanying instrumental score between songs offers a smooth enough transition that a character singing only feels like a natural progression of the music — and if it hasn’t become obvious enough already, I love the music. Probably to my parents’ chagrin, I had the soundtrack on CD as a child and went through a period of listening to it on repeat in the car. A personal favourite of mine is “Pretty Women,” a duet between Depp and the late, great Alan Rickman that manages to be tender, sinister and jolly all at once. These songs aren’t catchy in the traditional musical sense, but I believe you’ll still find yourself humming along to them for a good while after hearing them.
Many musical scenes in the film are still somewhat theatrical or comedic in nature, with some coordinated as if they are still intended to be a dance or performance on a stage (i.e. “The Worst Pies in London,” “A Little Priest,” etc), yet they never feel forced or out of nowhere and instead flow seamlessly into the scene. Whereas the stage musical would often have the characters simply standing still for 5 minutes as they sang to the audience, the film adds flashback scenes and moments of fantasy realism to fully illustrate what is being sung about (eg “A Barber and His Wife,” “Poor Thing,” “By the Sea”), a choice that makes scenes already charged with emotion that much more dynamic and is, in my opinion, an improvement from the stage musical that only a film — this film in particular — could achieve.
With a brand new 4K UHD Blu Ray release, I am beyond delighted that this film — which I feel wholeheartedly deserved its Academy Award win for Best Art Direction and nominations for Best Actor and Best Costume Design — will undeniably have a resurgence in popularity, and I cannot wait for fans, both old and new, to experience it once again with stunning picture quality and special features to enjoy. If you are a fan of musicals, definitely give it a watch. If you hate musicals, give it a watch anyway; it is undoubtedly one of the greatest — if not the greatest — musical adaptations ever made, and it may surprise you how much you end up enjoying it. Oh, and if there was ever any doubt: it’s a hard, gold, shiny 5 stars from me.
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET IS OUT NOW ON WARNER BROS 4K BLU-RAY
