Sweeney Todd-The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Gripping review

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In the series of shortlisted entries from DearCinema Review Contest, today we publish the joint winner of week I, Anirvan Ghosh's review of Sweeney Todd: The Demon barber of Fleet Street

That Tim Burton would make a grotesque movie was expected, going by his penchant for nightmares and horrors. But here he has created a gripping adaptation of the 1979 Broadway hit, and made a full-blown musical at the same time. It works. And I cannot think of any other actor who could have played the character as superbly as Johnny Depp.

This is Depp's sixth film with Burton, and he brings about a pain-wracked intensity to the role. The movie is almost a horror film with large helpings of spine-chilling scenes of blood and gore. Depp has been able to bring out the intensity of the role and delved into the character by singing for the first time on screen, and doing a good job of it despite a notoriously difficult score by theatre legend Stephen Sondheim.

Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) — the barber who's back in dank Victorian London and looking for revenge on crooked Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) after enduring an unjust stint in a penal colony and losing his wife, who was the target of Turpin's lust. On his return from Australia Todd learns that his daughter is now the judge's ward. He finds his straight razors whom he calls "my friends" under the floorboards of his former shop and then sets out to have his revenge on the judge, the path being littered with many innocent deaths. This forlorn Todd enters into a pact with local pie-maker Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) that sees trade blossom for both — and offers Todd a busman's outlet for his anger, as he slits his customers' necks faster than their beards, and sends them careening down the cellar where Lovett chops them into meat pies.

The comfort level is evident between the actors. In real life Johnny Depp is godfather to the young son of Carter and Burton. Perhaps they have started resembling each other in the movies, though this is the first time Carter and Depp have starred opposite each other and display a crackling chemistry. Depp has earlier essayed misfits from Edword Scissorhands to Ed Wood for Burton, and each one has been a virtuoso performance. Sweeney Todd just takes that a notch higher.

Depp's voice is nice, croaky and forceful, and you can spot a trained singer lurking in there. Set to Sondheim's hauntingly beautiful music score, Depp's voice resonates with pent-up emotions and a yearning for revenge in "Johanna" where he has adeptly held on to the notes and brings out the barber obsessed with revenge. Depp manages to claw in some romance for his anti-hero, and you might actually feel sympathetic for him as the wronged guy following a essentially righteous path before he goes on his killing binge.

Burton depicts the killings ruthlessly, and it is as grotesque as it gets. As the bodies careen down the cellar, they hit the ground with a thud, as their necks break and death is instantaneous, except for the judge, when he finally arrives. You get a sickening feeling as you see the young boy discover human parts in the meat pies. Burton is successful in blending opposing emotions of love and savagery in the same person at the same time, in the form of the cannabalistic Mrs Lovett. He has maintained a diabolical coherence throughout the relatively pacy movie, but struggles to avoid a flat middle section that contrasts with the atmospherics of his opening and the melodrama of his finale. He has given a dash of innocence, in the form of young would-be lovers (Jayne Wisener and Jamie Campbell Bower) but which gets smothered and killed, in consonance with the diabolical narrative.

Carter has given in a good performance and has measured up, well almost, to the voice her songs demanded. Supporting actors have done it nicely, especially Alan Rickman's predatory judge, and a nice cameo from Sacha Baron Cohen as a competing barber who ends up as Todd's first victim. A thoughtful, sincere and moving film, buttressed by a fine performance by an actor at the top of his form. This is Tim Burton's tour de force.

Entry Closes for Week III tonight