Come December, the time when studios unleash their racehorses for the awards season, there appears at least one musical with the mission of swaying nostalgic Academy voters and convincing audiences that its genre is not dead. This time around it is the turn of Dreamworks-Paramount and Warner Bros to join forces in the hope that their Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will be this year’s Chicago or Dreamgirls. This is a daring thing to do if you consider that Sweeney Todd is easily the bloodiest musical ever. Its pleasures are a decidedly acquired taste and when they combine with the acquired taste of its director’s aesthetics, this screen musical may prove too large a morsel to swallow for many a viewer. Tim Burton is the perfect man for the job, but his logical choice of turning this macabre morality tale into a live-action equivalent of Corpse Bride, slashed throats, blood fountains and all, makes for a disorienting experience for the audience. As the booming organ chords see off the poignant denouement, one has the nagging feeling that there was a lot to admire but precious little to enjoy. 

The demon barber cutting a little more than beards and sideburns seems to have been a popular city legend in the 1850s before it was shaped into a play by Christopher Bond. His work was in turn embraced by Stephen Sondheim who made it into a musical, which is now considered a somewhat exotic landmark in the genre. Its story is about a London barber named Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) whose serene life is taken away from him by the vile Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) who desires Barker’s beautiful wife for himself. The barber is sentenced on trumped-up charges and shipped away to Australia. Years later Barker escapes from his prison Down Under and returns to the stench and fog of Dickensian London only to find out that his beloved wife had poisoned herself after the judge’s violent advances and that his daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisner) is now the judge’s ward.

Barker is consumed by the thought of revenge; he changes his name to Sweeney Todd and sets his business up again in his old barber shop that is situated above Mrs Lovett’s (Helena Bonham Carter) pub, which is proud to be offering the worst meat pies in London. After Sweeney dispenses somewhat abruptly with his rival Adolfo Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett come to a business arrangement, which implies a direct connection between the one-way traffic into Todd’s barbershop and the improved quality of her pies.

The story is taken forward by a streamlined assortment of Stephen Sondheim’s songs from his musical and as exercises in staging and storytelling they are nothing short of excellent. All actors sing their songs too, which is admirable, but it does not change the fact that, despite the agreeable performances of Depp, Bonham Carter and Rickman, their rather weak voices detract from the songs’ impact. The overall performances of the three lead actors are more about looks than emotion. Although they are the preferred collaborators of director Burton, Depp and Bonham Carter are more preoccupied with appearances than feelings. Their make-up and costumes are a morbid joy in and of themselves, but the actors are mostly concerned with hitting the right notes and nailing the mannerisms of a dark, dirty and unforgiving 19th century London.
With the help of Dante Ferretti’s superb production design Burton makes this film decidedly his own and he revels in the opportunity to make an unhinged blend of music, fantastic visuals, blood and macabre humour, but the end result is as overwhelming as it is impressive. If this is a game of artistic bluffing, this time around Burton has probably one-upped his audience.