depp makes sweet music with dark horror
Sunday, 17 February 2008 | | |
Depp makes sweet music with dark horror
Sweeney Todd is a macabre and morbid fascination, an anti-holiday
movie like only the gothic-souled Tim Burton can create.
To put it into perspective, the title character, played with devilish
dexterity by Johnny Depp, slits a world record number of throats all
while singing a song that is as sad and loathsome as anything that can
be created in the thick London fog. Not the kind of movie that screams
"Merry Christmas"; just one that screams, period.
Todd is based on Stephen Sondheim's 1979 Broadway musical, which was
possibly, although not ever proven, based on a real guy who really
slit throats in pre-Victorian London. Todd was supposedly Jack the
Ripper way before Jack the Ripper.
Always up for ghoulish emo roles, Depp plays ol' Sweeney, a barber who
was exiled from London after a crooked judge stole his wife and
banished him from seeing her. Word on the streets is that she died
shortly thereafter. Something like 15 years later, Sweeney, now a
fiendish and bitter barber with a skunk hairdo, returns to London to
slice himself off a little piece of revenge.
Todd's somewhat-secret identity is revealed so he joins up with Mrs.
Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter, another Burton regular ... and his
girlfriend), who bakes grotesque meat pies in a roach-infested bakery
on Fleet Street. She sings: These are probably the worst pies in
London/I know why nobody cares to take them/I should know, I make
them.
After disposing of an extortionist Italian competitor (Sacha Baron
Cohen), Todd and Mrs. Lovett begin killing and hacking up the
barbershop's customers to be baked into her now-famous meat pies. Mrs.
Lovett acts pretty chipper about the whole process, even imagining, in
rather specific detail, a marriage with Todd that is fueled by their
human-pie profits. Todd is less cozy to the idea and he spends long
episodes in front of a large window looking out onto London, even as
he drags his blades ("my friends") across lathered-up throats. All he
wants is his wife, and the daughter they had together, back in his
life.
There are other characters I'm neglecting, including Judge Turpin
(Alan Rickman), who adopted Todd's daughter and then plans to marry
her 15 years later; a young sailor, one of only two innocent
characters in the film; a greasy old beggar who threatens to spoil the
pie business; and Toby (Ed Sanders), a boy Todd takes in after killing
his master. Rickman, who is usually playing Severus Snape this time a
year, is always a treat. Sanders, though, at only 14 years old, plays
a street mutt with precision. And against Johnny Depp too!
Sweeney Todd is a musical through and through. I have to announce that
because the film's marketing department is playing up Depp and
Burton's sixth collaboration together and downplaying the musical
elements in fear that it will turn people, ever fearful of singing and
dancing, away from Todd. That's a mistake. A big one. Play up the
music; it's the film's best element. And what challenging lyrics, too:
Here's a politician, so oily/It's served with doily/Have one? The
lines, all of them, are sung speedily and their timing is perfect.
Depp is typical Depp, which means he's very good. Not the best,
though. That honor goes to Carter, who seems to embody the ragged
spirit and gooey determination of Mrs. Lovett, the meat pie
professional.
Sweeney Todd is Rated R for a marathon of neck slashings that occur in
the middle of the film, where it seems to lag a little. I would not
recommend bringing children or you'll risk spoiling their Christmas.
They'll never eat a pie or go to the barber again -- and wooly and