If there has been a director more suited to a project then director Tim Burton is to composer Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street this year then I certainly have not seen them. A symphony of blood, bravura, butchery, barbarity and beauty, this film could quite possibly be the musical event of the year. Heck, it might even be the man’s best film ever, and considering just how much I adore Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and Batman Returns that’s definitely saying something.

Sweeney Todd's (Johnny Depp) arm is complete again in Dreamworks' Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) has returned to London after escaping 15 years of false imprisonment. He has vowed to kill the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), the man responsible for ruining his life, caused the ruination of his wife Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly) and adopted his daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener) as his ward. The one-time barber will not rest until he sees this man, as well as his sniveling assistant Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall), carved up upon the floor, the single-minded nature of this endeavor consuming him completely.

To this end, Barker will set up shop atop the business of former friend and confidant Mrs. Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) taking up the name of Sweeney Todd. But before he can come up with a plan to deal with the judge, flamboyant Italian upstart Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen) threatens to expose his secret to the world. This crisis is short-lived, however, when the fellow barber’s throat is slit by one of Sweeney’s silver blades, Mrs. Lovett coming to the novel idea of using the corpse as filling for her struggling pie shop's wares.

Now this duo is ready. The knives are sharp, the fires are burning and the customers are lining up to eat up the evidence. All that is left is for Judge Turpin to be sitting in Sweeney’s chair, and with Johanna and her secret paramour Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) as bait the trap has definitely been set. Now he must make the final cut, proving once and for all forgiveness is not within this bloodthirsty barber’s vengeful vocabulary.

From the moment Sondheim’s powerfully baroque score thunders throughout the theater and the first droplets of blood trickle on the screen, it is immediately apparent Burton has finally made his masterpiece. This film is like great theater, the more you watch it and obsess over every angle and minutiae the better and more magnificent it becomes. Dante Ferretti’s (The Black Dahlia) production design radiates Gothic grace, Colleen Atwood’s (Memoirs of a Geisha) costumes reek of sinful authenticity, Dariusz Wolski’s (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End) cinematography percolates in grotesque imagination. Technically the film is a knockout, every single part of it as monumental and spectacular as anything I could have possibly imagined.

But none of that compares to the emotional tidal waves rippling throughout this thing. Depp has never been better (save maybe in his underrated turn in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), so gloriously monstrous as the barber Todd he becomes him completely. The pain, the pathos, the monumental oceans of regret pulsing through this killer’s veins is viscerally palpable, and from the moment the actor sings his first song standing on the bridge of a ship welcoming him back to London in vindictive sadness I almost could not believe my ears.

This is one of the great performances of our time, and while Depp may not be an opera star he certainly makes up for that fact with passion and world-weary sorrow. One of my favorite pieces from the Sondheim show is when the barber embraces his razors again for the first time in 15 years, finally claiming at the end his arm is complete. This moment is galvanizing, Todd’s once frail arm suddenly looking as fit and as fiddle as a strongman’s holding a 100-pound dumbbell.

The rest of the cast nearly matches him, and while none of them will ever make you forget about Angela Lansbury or Len Cariou what they all do here is still just different and exemplary enough that the legendary 1979 Broadway production almost (emphasis on the almost) becomes an afterthought. Rickman, in particular, is as sinister as he’s ever been, and even though it will never happen I for one feel it is just about time this fine actor gets the Academy Award nomination he’s long deserved.

Yet this is Burton’s day, pure and simple, and Sweeney Todd is his horrific triumph. Some will find it too graphic with too many throats slit and too much blood spurt. Some will be put off by the constant singing, everyone conversing in song while the rampaging Gothic imagery assaults their senses from every angle. Some will say lots of things and, as a result, I fear all of this saying will reflect poorly at the box office. 

For my part, I say phooey on them and hurrah for the visionary director. This film soars like no tomorrow, each scene working in perfect symmetry with the others to craft a whole as shockingly luminous as any I’ve experienced. It is, in other words, an instant classic, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street one of 2007’s absolute best.

Film Rating: êêêê (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Sweeney Todd Theatrical Trailer