"Raise the Bar, Sweeney" Review: Sweeney Todd (2007; Tim Burton)

Written two weeks ago for The Arlington Connection, I have no idea if they ran it. I was told they did.

The story of Sweeney Todd is a bit silly on the surface: Years after a barber's family is stolen from him, the barber and a struggling restaurateur take revenge against the city of London by murdering their customers, turning them into meat pies and then selling them to unsuspecting patrons. Though odd, it's blatant misanthropy and lust for violence was anything but silly when it became a Broadway musical. The campiness of the medium acted yin to this Grand Guignol's yang and the show remains a rare and exciting case of both art and entertainment coexisting and taking risks, even if those risks are not always successful. Unfortunately, those who have seen the show on stage will be saddened to know that Tim Burton polishes away all the shine from the musical with pretty, but shallow, aesthetic choices.

Nothing sets this tone better than the film's opening credits, bathed in the artificial blood of computer animation and scored with the musical's glorious opening song, now rendered impotent with an uninspired instrumental arrangement. Surely someone more adept to wry humor could argue that Burton's murdering of Stephen Sondheim's musical is a playful parallel to the barber's love for cutting the throats of his victims, but I struggle to believe Tim Burton is all that clever.

Instead the film is a testament to where Tim Burton has traveled since his early years as a filmmaker, and a reminder that he once offered successful tastes of the macabre to straightforward genre exercises such as the slapstick comedy Beetlejuice, the action film Batman, or the bio-pic Ed Wood. Now, with Sweeney Todd being yet another blunder in a series of many for the director, Burton again simplifies his stories into empty buzz words such as love and evil, he casts actors who are unable to act and sing at the same time, and he, like most amateur musical theater directors, never answers why the story is told through song. For Burton, he only cares about the art direction. The sets, the costumes, the make-up and the cinematography are all quite stunning, but this single-minded obsession means that Burton is no longer a filmmaker. He is now a sculptor who chooses to film his pieces interact with one another, be they the quirk-for-quirk's-sake skunk stripe through Depp's hair, or the white powder that stains Helena Bonham Carter's skin.

So maybe if you treat this film as only a Sweeney Todd inspired sculpture, rather than a film adaptation, then maybe you'll be able to find merit in the work. Though given the self-importance of the film and its end of the year release, casual movie goers may only see the film as yet another one of Hollywood's cash (and Oscar) cows.