Sweeney Todd vs Eastern Promises

Here we have a director who knows his strengths. When, in the opening credits of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, you see the words “a Tim Burton film”, you can rest assured those words mean exactly what you think: stylized gothic architecture, dark humor, grotesqueries, creepy visuals, shadows, Johnny Depp. There might never be another musical better suited to a specific director. Throughout Sweeney Todd, I imagined split screens, with the final product before me sitting beside Tim Burton’s sketches. Sets, costumes and character looks are all present, identically—I’m guessing—as they were this time last year in Tim Burton’s head. I can think of no other movie which looks as if it’s an exact representation of a director’s imagination. And that’s no small feat, since Sweeney Todd is a piece that’s already been filtered through a dozen or so adaptations.

For those of you who’ve never seen the play or heard the music, a primer: Benjamin Barker had a lovely wife and daughter, but was the envy of a crooked judge. After Benjamin was sent away to prison on trumped-up charges, the wife was raped and then driven both mad and suicidal. Her daughter became the ward of the judge who made it all happen. And now, Benjamin is back, out for blood, and calling himself Sweeney Todd.

Johnny Depp stars as the titular barber. I think Depp’s slow-burn rise to megastardom has been one of the most satisfying of any actor of the past couple decades. That he’s essentially the most popular actor in Hollywood, while simultaneously being the weirdest is quite satisfying to people like me, and likely completely frustrating to people like, oh I don’t know, Nicolas Cage’s agent.  I often wonder who, of the current crop of actors, might also have thrived in old Hollywood. Those actors needed a different set of skills. For example, it was way more likely in 1945 that you might need to tap-dance than, say, blog. I’m not sure any of us knew our best candidate for an Old Hollywood triple-threat was Johnny Depp, but all doubt has been removed with Sweeney Todd. We all knew the guy was a risk-taker, and that he’s a bold, imaginative actor. He’s also terrifying villain, and a capable, expressive singer. Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd just might be the performance of an already impressive career, which all but guarantees it’s one of the performances of the year.

Depp’s demon barber meets his match in Mrs. Levitt, played by Helena Bonham Carter. Like Depp, Carter has made a long career of defying expectations. Take some cold afternoon and watch A Room with a View, Fight Club, and Sweeney Todd, and try to wrap your brain around the fact that this woman does not have an Oscar. Carter’s Mrs. Levitt is hilariously demented, cooking up cockroaches and much worse into her pies. Carter brings a bit of sensitivity to the movie as well, pining for Sweeney and showing a bit of maternal affection for Toby, a young con-artist befriended and employed by the murderous lead characters. Toby is played by Ed Sanders; if Sweeney Todd were five minutes longer, he’d have stolen the show. He almost does anyway, in a duet with Carter on Not While I’m Around. Little guy sings like a bird, but is never precocious or cloying.

Oh, and Alan Rickman is there too, as Sweeney Todd’s nemesis, and he absolutely kills it, which is what happens when you’re Alan Rickman.

Ultimately, Sweeney Todd lives or dies depending on how much you appreciate the world of Tim Burton, and how much bright red blood you can stomach (it’s the color of cherry sours, and sprays, squirts, spills, gushes and splashes to all edges of the screen). For the former, sign me up. I can handle all the Burton clichés you got. Top hats and buck teeth? Yes. Fright wigs and powdered faces? Pile it on. And the blood? Well yeah, there’s probably too much blood. But Sweeney Todd is a tale so decadent, blackly comic and horrifying, what did you expect: just a little blood here and there?

Eastern Promises is another movie from a singular director, with a couple actors who took their time warming up, and a violent tale of revenge. There’s even a throat-slashing barber. Sometimes these things write themselves.

Viggo Mortenson stars as Nikolai, a driver for a Russian crime family in London. Nikolai is trusted as much or more than actual members of the family, and is in line for a promotion. His body is covered in tattoos telling the story of his own suffering, as well as the suffering he’s inflicted on others. Before the movie’s done, he’ll have three more. Nikolai is drawn into a dangerous relationship with a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts), who is in possession of a diary that once belonged to a young Russian girl. The girl was only fourteen, and died in childbirth. The cause of her death, and pregnancy, I’ll leave for you to discover, but suffice to say Anna and Nikolai would both sleep a little easier if that diary had never been found in the first place. Anna doesn’t trust Nikolai, but he treats her with respect, and he’s a better option than any of his employers (Armin Meuhler Stahl and Vincent Cassell), who would like to just kill Anna and take the diary.

In a more conventional movie, Nikolai and Anna would fall in love, battle the Russian mafia, and escape to live happily ever after, maybe even with the baby. Eastern Promises is a harder movie than that one to watch, and to love, but I’m glad for it. Director David Cronenberg introduces us to a London we’ve not seen on film before, in a movie that is, top to bottom, perfectly cast. As Anna, Watts is tentative and intelligent, and says volumes with silence and tiny gestures. As the family’s second-in-command, Vincent Cassell is a rare combo of tragic and flamboyant (well, it’s not so rare a combo once you’ve seen Sweeney Todd, where everyone is tragic and flamboyant, but still.) The film belongs to Viggo Mortenson. This actor, who has worked hard in film for a couple decades, is a star now, and it’s well-earned. For Nikolai, Mortenson has completely transformed his body—the muscles look prison-built rather than gym, and the tattoos look like the real thing. He speaks in a mix of Russian-accented English and Russian, and never seems less than the real deal. You’ve probably heard about his bathhouse fight scene, but beware: it’s one of the most visceral, violent, bloody, look-away fights ever captured on film. The bar has been raised. Seriously kids, the things this guy does with a knife, not to mention his elbow, will shock you more than any amount of skin you’re seeing. And the blood, which flows as freely as in Sweeney Todd, is blood-colored, and only arrives after much cringe-inducing effort. Yikes.

Eastern Promises is essentially a thriller, but it plays more like some kind of social drama. Unlike most thrillers, the pace isn’t key. Eastern Promises relies more on dangerous people than dangerous situations. Of course, with these people, any situation is one you don’t want to be in. By the end, as with Sweeney Todd, there’s just a touch of concession to the masses in Eastern Promises. Justice has to be served, loose ends have to be tied, music has to swell. But, as soon as that’s done, both films throw in one last curve, letting us know who’s really in charge, as if there was ever any doubt.

Sweeney Todd: A-

Eastern Promises: A-