Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

RECOMMENDED
There will be Depp. One of the most beautiful men in the public sphere dares sorrow at every turn: his melancholy turn in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” seems slightly one-note at first, but as Tim Burton’s adaptation progresses, from a script by John Logan, abridging Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s brackish 1979 musical (with Sondheim’s intent compositional collaboration), the sense of regret is more palpable than the thirst for vengeance and blood, and a few days later, even without seeing the movie a second time, the memory of it is enough to make you weep. It’s not just his great beauty without vanity, a serenity borne of complete confidence (or creative abandon); it’s a damn fine incarnation of a character in the culture for over thirty years. While those fortunate enough to have seen Angela Lansbury’s meat-pie-making Mrs. Lovett in the flesh will harp, Helena Bonham Carter makes a fine hopeful drudge in the dusty corners of Todd’s neglect. Alan Rickman is a stubbly bruise as the rapacious Judge Turpin; Sacha Baron Cohen is priceless in blue satin, with prodigious, almost indescribable packaging; Timothy Spall is more ratticus than everus; and young Jamie Campbell Bower, who motors some of the generational conflict with Todd’s missing wife and daughter, is unspeakably angelic. The stage-bound decors balance out all the human filigree with grime and soot and warped, antique glass and looking glasses. Plus: BLOOD! MOTHER! BLOOD! 118m. (Ray Pride)