Dion at the Flicks

I was probably about four years old when my grandfather first told me the legend of Sweeney Todd, the crazed barber who slit his patrons’ throats before having their flesh baked into delicious meat pies. The tale, while more than likely apocryphal, touches on several fears close to most people’s hearts, not the least of which is unwittingly eating a fellow human being (and worse still, actually enjoying it).

Todd’s story was adapted countless times over the last couple of centuries, but the most notable in recent times was the 1979 Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, itself based on a 1973 play by Christopher Bond. The play and musical added greater depth to the story by transforming it into a macabre tale of tragedy and revenge, and now director Tim Burton has adapted the musical into a Hollywood film.

Sweeney Todd (Burton-favourite Johnny Depp) was once Benjamin Barker, a meek and mild barber living in London with a beautiful wife and child. But when the slimy Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) coverts Barker’s wife, he frames the barber and has him transported to Australia; now, 15 years later, Barker returns to London as Todd, a man devoured by thoughts of revenge.

Alas, once in London, Todd learns from his landlady Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) that his wife poisoned herself, and from there he loses his last shred of humanity. His planned revenge on the Judge, once frustrated, transforms into revenge upon society as a whole, and his killing spree results in the perfect ingredient for Lovett’s hitherto inedible meat pies.

Once again, Burton’s involvement is self-evident: his Gothic sensibilities fit perfectly with this Dickensian London that seems to exist in the bowels of hell. If there’s a contemporary musical that Burton was born to adapt to the screen, it’s this. Unfortunately, Burton’s sense of whimsy and playfulness is (for the most part) sorely missed here. The one sequence that allows him a chance to inject the lighter part of his personality into the proceedings is “By the Sea” — a much-needed moment of respite from the grim goings-on throughout the rest of the film — but for the bulk of the running time, we’re treated to angst punctuated by copious blood-letting.

Furthermore, things really slow to a crawl during the romantic subplot between Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) and Johanna (Jayne Wisener), which only has a tangential connection to the main story and isn’t engaging in the slightest. On the other hand, Sacha Baron Cohen is delightful as the rival barber Pirelli, but, of course, his part is short-lived (no pun intended).

The curious thing about Sweeney Todd is that, for a mainstream film, the audience seems quite limited. There’s far too much blood for your average musical fan, yet far too much singing for most filmgoers willing to put up with the gore. And I must emphasise that there’s a lot of singing — hardly any dialogue is actually spoken — and the melodies aren’t particularly memorable, either. I know I’m sounding like an uneducated philistine here, but ultimately there seemed to be a lot to admire about the film but little to actually like about it. This may be one of Burton’s most accomplished films, but it’s also one of his most emotionally distant. I’ll take Ed Wood or even Sleepy Hollow over this any day of the week.

Put simply, this is Burton at his darkest and most gruesome. The craft on display is impeccable, but the film itself feels cold, keeping the audience at arm’s length. Perhaps, like Todd’s own victims, his story has been recycled for consumption that many times that the servings may seem more appetising than they really are.