Genre Bending Barber Horror

Review: Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

By Claire Lustig

Any expectation that you may have as you press play to watch Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is wrong. If there’s one thing that you can say about this film, it’s that Sweeney Todd defies genre in a way that few other films can. The movie is funny, dramatic, sweet and scary at times, regularly interchanging its tone depending on the scene. Many of these changes are done through song, which may be confusing when reading the synopsis, but makes sense once you realize that this originated on Broadway, with the songs written by legend Stephen Sondheim. While lyrical repetitions are relatively common in the musical world, very few use this technique as much as Sondheim does in Sweeney Todd. Pretty much every time that Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) sings there’s a repetition of “Do you think that walls can hide you? Even now I’m at your window, I am in the dark beside you, buried sweetly in your yellow hair.” Even though this sounds (and is) creepy, these songs are the romantic core of the film and foil the toxic and false relationship between Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. At the core of the film is the push and pull between Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett to the background of Todd’s revenge against Judge Turpin, they use each other for their own gain and lie to each other, with the revelation of one of these lies being the climax of the film. Tim Burton nailed the atmosphere and the performances were all good. This is undeniably a fun watch because of how chaotic it is but this still has quite a few issues. Firstly, I really didn’t like the lighting, I found it really hard to see in some scenes which is never enjoyable as a viewer (whoever lit Game of Thrones season 8 episode 3 must love this movie). I also wish that the songs were better. I understand that repetitiveness is common in musicals, but the songs in this were so repetitive that it felt lazy to me and most of the songs got old really fast because of this. I also wish that actual singers were cast because Jamie Campbell Bower was the only person who sounded good. Overall, I understand why people enjoy this and this film is undeniably a unique watch.