‘Sweeney Todd’ a disappointment to die-hard fans

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a great, big, huge, fucking faggot.

If I were less of a fag, I wouldn’t have the original 1979 Broadway cast recording of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd on my iPod. If I were less of a fag, I wouldn’t have watched the 1982 Emmy Award-winning television broadcast of the national tour of Sweeney Todd—featuring Angela Lansbury and George Hearn—seven or eight hundred thousand times over the last 25 years. And if I were less of a fag, maybe I wouldn’t have flown to New York City last year to see Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris in John Doyle’s acclaimed Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd (which should have won the Tony for best revival but was robbed by The Pajama Game).

In short, if I weren’t such a great, big, huge, fucking faggot . . . I might have enjoyed Tim Burton’s new film version of Sweeney Todd more than I did.

Like Chicago before it, Sweeney Todd was before its time. When Chicago opened in 1975, audiences weren’t all that interested in seeing a musical—a musical—about corrupt lawyers who manipulate the media and turn a murder trial into a circus (literally), not only getting a guilty person off but turning her into a celebrity, too. When Chicago was revived on Broadway in the mid-’90s, in the cultural wake left by the O. J. Simpson trial, audiences were ready. The revival scooped up a bunch of Tony Awards, and a film adaptation won the Oscar for best picture.

Sweeney Todd, like Chicago, got a cool reception when it opened on Broadway in 1979. A musical about a serial killer? A musical comedy? Sweeney Todd opened long before Silence of the Lambs, long before Saws I-IV, long before Hostel, long before Dexter. In short, long before the serial killer became our reigning pop-culture antihero. More problematically, Sweeney Todd had the artistic ambition of an opera (most of the show is sung), and it contains some of Sondheim’s most beautiful and challenging music, from “Pretty Women” to “Not While I’m Around” to “A Little Priest.”

And now Burton has made the film.

For a fan of the musical—a rabid fan—it’s hard to overlook what Burton got wrong and enjoy what Burton got right. So let me quickly tick through the wrongs. Helena Bonham Carter can’t sing—which is a big problem, as Mrs. Lovett has almost as many songs as Sweeney in Burton’s version. And so many songs have been omitted or scaled back that anyone familiar with the score—you know, big fags like me—is going to leave the theater feeling cheated. I particularly missed the “Kiss Me (Quartet).” And some of the violence—particularly a certain immolation—is so over-the-top gruesome that it draws attention to the filmmaker and away from the barber.

And Burton, even with Sondheim hovering over his shoulder, somehow manages to blow two of the show’s most emotionally devastating moments: When the corrupt judge who raped Sweeney’s wife and stole his daughter informs Sweeney (whom he doesn’t recognize) that he now intends to marry his daughter . . . Sweeney, razor in hand, doesn’t react? Not a twinge? Not a twitch? Nothing? Then, when Sweeney’s rage and the action reach their bloody climaxes, Sweeney suddenly pardons one of his intended victims?

So what did Burton get right? The first two-thirds of the film transport you into a thoroughly hellish vision of early 19th-century London. Sacha Baron Cohen is a brilliant choice for Pirelli, a rival barber, and the rest of the supporting cast—mostly unknowns—is equally strong. (Although it seems odd that the actor playing Anthony is about 500 times prettier than the actress playing Johanna.) The music, as much as was used, is beautiful and (when Bonham Carter isn’t singing) beautifully sung.

Johnny Depp’s Sweeney is, I feel, a bit too mannered—and too dark. When Mrs. Lovett accuses Sweeney of always “brooding on his wrongs,” it’s a self-serving exaggeration; Depp seems to have built his performance around it. Still, Depp has the charisma to carry the film and to make us sympathize with a monster.

Finally, two numbers redeem the production entirely. During “A Little Priest,” Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney leer out of the windows of Mrs. Lovett’s meat-pie shop, picking out the Londoners they intend to pick off. It’s brilliant, more than worth the price of admission, and it takes the song—the big act-one finale—to a darker and yet somehow more humorous place. And Bonham Carter, who can’t sing (have I mentioned that?), can act. You can see her heart breaking—a heart you didn’t think she had—when she decides, during “Not While I’m Around,” that she has no choice but to murder the child who completes her macabre little family.

SWEENEY TODD DIR. TIM BURTON | RATED R | OPENS FRIDAY

Tags: broadway, Film, johnny dep, musical, sweeney todd, tim burton