This past Thursday, I had the esteemed privilege of seeing Tim Burton's new adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, which I've been hearing about for weeks.
A quick disclaimer: I became an adult with the theatre. I was totally a drama nerd throughout high school. But not a hardcore one. I knew shows, but I never sought them out, I never heard them, and that's how Sweeney Todd was for me. I knew the story and the show, but had never heard the music, never knew what it was actually like.
So I went into this Tim Burton adaptation apprehensively. There was the awful trailer, which couldn't figure out whether to market it as a musical or not, the presence of Tim Burton, who makes interesting but not necessarily good movies, and the prospect of a 3-hour show cut down to 2 hours.
It quickly negated all my fears. This is a film, not a show. It's clear Burton had no background in the theatre, because this is incredibly cinematic. Many recent movie musicals just stick a camera in front of a scene and let people sing; here, it's in close ups, it shoots you through 19th century London with energy and zest, lets you see every emotion fill the screen. The screenwriter, who was at the screening, stressed their MO to go for a realistic portrayal, and they got it.
Depp's singing works nicely, and Sacha Baron Cohen gives a brilliant if short performance, but the performances across the board are spectacular.
See it for the closing shot alone, the most beautiful I've seen in a movie this year, and let it win you over the rest of the time. You won't regret it, and you'll feel really cool come Oscar time.
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