Wiggly Socks Movie Reviews

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

A screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 theatrical musical.


There was once a barber happily married with a beautiful wife and a young daughter in the city of London. There was also a judge in the city of London, who desired the wife and having failed to seduce her with her husband present, convicted the husband on false charges and sent him to exile for life.

Fifteen years the husband, Benjamin Barker aka Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), returns to find his place empty, his wife having supposedly poisoned herself after judge Turpin had his way with her, and his daughter living as his ward.

Todd wants to take a revenge on the judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). In a meantime, he revenges himself on many others, cutting their throats while shaving them.

His accomplice is Mrs. Lovett who runs the worst pie shot in town. Meat is so expensive and waste is so bad, they go into business together, he kills the human prey, she (Helena Bonham Carter) bakes it into pies. Those are now very nice indeed. Income and convenience goes hand in hand.

Of course, it all ends tragically, as it must.

The film is fantastically, picturesquely staged with beautiful use of light and color in a sharp contrast to the grays of everyday life. Face make-up and carefully used hair do´s complete the visuals. Paleness and cascading hair, dark eye make-up and slashes of mouth, it all fits together to express director´s vision of 18th century London. Equally beautifully costumed and masked with the camera and directions making it almost dancing visuals. Or a musical. Alas here is the problem: it is a musical. A lot of the dialog and action is explained through songs, occasionally song and dance or movement as precisely choreographed as a dance would be. Visually astonishing, the singing slows the tempo to crawling and there is not enough story to fill two hours.

Many of the frames could be still pictures, they are good enough to hang in a gallery, and the strong hand of a director who is used to much shorter animated films is palpable through out. But this is not the Nightmare Before Christmas, and it is not in 3D.

It gets boring that Johnny Depp is always exactly the same, an angry, detached man with no facial expressions to speak of and no feelings except for revenge. Helena Bonham Carter is a matter of fact woman, however she is devoted to her Mr. T, and it is comically touching when she is saying: Mr. T, don’t you think one a day is enough?, in an attempt to save a boy’s life. Otherwise her acceptance of all what Todd does is as matter of fact and calm as possible. Yet, she dreams of life with him and even shows some feelings for others. What she had lost in her of humanity was probably trodden out of her as much as it was out of Todd.

They both stay in their character faultlessly but cannot add more to the story, which is simple, bloody and should have been much shorter.

Those who prefer their stories somewhat more realistic, although equally beautifully filmed if in a different sort of setting, might prefer to watch the BBC production of Sweeney Todd (2006) where there are no big Hollywood names, the barber first kills a man who tortured him when he was jailed as a child and the woman an abused wife of a man whom she is deadly afraid off. Mrs. Lovett becomes the great love of Todd's life and he kills those he perceives as harmful to others.

There is no evidence that there was ever such barber, or even a barber shop in the Fleet Street in 18th century. The story has origins in 1776 when the first true crime report appeared. The Annals of Newgate, or the Malefactors Register, were printed at the request of His Majesty's government by the Newgate chaplain and became very popular. Then came The Newgate Calendar, or the Malefactors Bloody Register, depicting various famous Old Baily criminals, most of whom ended on Gallows. The story had been re-worked many times, notably as the penny-dreadful in the People’s Periodical (1846)written by Thomas Press and titled String of Pearls: A Romance, and retains about three elements, the barber. Margery Lovett and a boy. What happens to them, and why it happens, changes, yet the Barbers kills and Margery bakes in all of them.

Directed by Tim Burton, Camera Dariusz Wolski, Screenplay: John Logan, based on the musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation of “Sweeney Todd” by Christopher Bond.

Sweeney Todd - Johnny Depp
Mrs. Nellie Lovett - Helena Bonham Carter
Judge Turpin - Alan Rickman
Beadle Bamford - Timothy Spall
Adolfo Pirelli - Sacha Baron Cohen
Johanna - Jayne Wisner
Anthony Hope - Jamie Campbell Bower
Toby - Edward Sanders
Beggar Woman - Laura Michelle Kelly