When wanting again on the varied actors that Tim Burton has labored with repeatedly all through his profession, the one which’s essentially the most rewarding to revisit is Helena Bonham Carter. Throughout seven movies, she’s had arguably the widest vary of characters in Burton’s unofficial firm. These roles have allowed the actor to go far past the characters she’s most famed for, like Bellatrix Lestrange within the Harry Potter franchise and Princess Margaret in The Crown. Going from candy and nurturing to curious and introspective to determined and beguiled, Carter has been deployed from plenty of completely different angles, but all her appearances are unified by a starvation for a life that is freed from restraint, be it emotional or societal. Of her Burton catalog, it is in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as meat-pie maker Mrs. Lovett, that she bought her most multidimensional function, and it resulted in the very best efficiency you may see in any Tim Burton movie.
Who Does Helena Bonham Carter Play in ‘Sweeney Todd’?
Former-barber-turned-social-pariah Benjamin Barker, now going by the identify Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), sails into London with solely revenge on his thoughts. Wanting to kill the villainous Decide Turpin (Alan Rickman), who banished Todd from society by throwing him in jail on trumped-up prices, Todd seeks a spot to remain so he can hatch his correct scheme. He finds a possible residence in his previous barber store, which is now Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pies, a failing institution run by Mrs. Lovett (Carter). She’s a widower who has lengthy submitted to the neverending decaying coffin that’s her life, but has by no means given up hope for some form of escape, and seeing Sweeney enter her store could possibly be the hope she craves. Rapidly determining who he was once, Lovett proposes letting him keep within the store, and the 2 finally develop into official co-conspirators in his grand scheme.
Whereas the film is ostensibly Sweeney Todd’s story, the majority of the emotional heavy lifting is completed by Mrs. Lovett. Sweeney would not have a lot of a personality arc, spending most of his display screen time utterly consumed by rage and despair, and is repeatedly proven to be an unsympathetic bastard, when you look previous his sad backstory. It is Mrs. Lovett who holds the movie’s coronary heart and goes by way of a full arc, rising from a hopelessly dejected mope to a savvy enterprise proprietor who provides herself permission to embrace the sentiments she’s harbored for therefore lengthy.
Burton’s films usually nearly burst on the seams with characters who share the burden of carrying a story, however Sweeney Todd is, for essentially the most half, a two-hander, counting on the toxic dynamic between Todd and Lovett to cost the narrative with the pathos essential to make this greater than an train in burlesque cruelty. Todd and Lovett have drastically imbalanced chemistry, one constructed off of Todd’s surly stoicism and Lovett’s desirous co-dependency, so it is as much as Carter to make Lovett a personality we discover to be a tragically difficult antiheroine, relatively than simply a pathetic parasite. Not solely does Carter succeed, however she makes Mrs. Lovett right into a wealthy research on the damaging results of relentlessly pursuing your dream and refusing to see the hazard in entrance of you, offering a cracked mirror picture of Sweeney that tries desperately to refract his picture, however can solely mirror it.
Carter Performs Lovett as Head over heels in Love With Sweeney
Underpinning all of Lovett’s actions is an unquenchable and one-sided love for Sweeney, which seemingly began lengthy earlier than he started going by that identify. Even earlier than she is aware of that he is really Barker, she refers to Barker as “stunning” when recounting how he was thrown in jail by Turpin, and is so wistful in her supply. Carter performs her as having the final word schoolgirl crush, unable to withstand smelling his hair or regaling him along with her fantasies of their romantic getaway, even because it’s clear how totally desolate he’s on the prospect of those concepts. Nothing will cease her from indulging within the desires which have saved her going by way of her years of hardship, not even the clear actuality that Sweeney is barely occupied with utilizing her as a pawn in his recreation. Having somebody like Johnny Depp play Sweeney provides an electrical “film star” cost to the character of Sweeney, which makes Lovett’s adulation of him really feel rooted in a form of unhinged fandom. However that unhinged nature is tempered with the sweetness and doting nature she holds inside her, proven in the way in which she’ll drape his leather-based overcoat over his shoulders or how she voluntarily asserts herself as a guardian to Toby (Ed Sanders), the younger ward Sweeney takes in as his assistant.
However there is a flip facet to that softer facet of Lovett, and that is how she’s finally simply as manipulative and self-serving as Sweeney, albeit with a perspective much less rooted in psychotic bloodthirst and extra within the pragmatic have to survive. She’s not above choosing the pockets of a corpse if the cash is sweet. She’s not above placing Toby below a softer taste of the identical form of abusive management that his former boss, Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), saved him below, albeit one constructed extra off of emotional manipulation than outright bodily punishment. Her concept to show Sweeney’s victims into meat for her meat pies is likely to be a superb visualization of the crushing influence capitalism’s want for human gasoline has on human our bodies, however it’s additionally a calculatedly sadistic transfer that she cooks up with zero regret or second thought.
One of many distinct pleasures of Burton’s adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical is the way it underlines that a lot of the predominant grownup characters are decadently tailor-made monsters out of a Charles Dickens story, utilizing their viciously inhumane acts as catharsis for the torrential emotions they cannot healthily course of. It is by way of Carter’s efficiency that we discover Lovett to be the one most deserving of our empathy. We find yourself mourning that she had the misfortune of seeing her fairytale ending in Sweeney and aggravated by how a lot of a tragedy the story is, for all concerned.
Helena Bonham Carter Sells the Music and the Coronary heart of ‘Sweeney Todd’
Sweeney Todd is, should you did not know, a musical, and that is one other space the place Helena Bonham Carter exhibits off a facet of her expertise we do not see a lot. Whereas her singing voice is not precisely on the extent of Bernadette Peters, her vocal high quality fits Sondheim’s lyrical type, which has all the time been identified for the way conversational it’s in comparison to other musicals. Not solely does she promote Lovett’s tunnel-visioned heartache and quaint self-conception, however she nails the bodily rhythm mandatory to offer the musical numbers that effervescent high quality that makes them fizz.
Regardless of being a conventional musical, Sweeney Todd has little dancing in its numbers, as a substitute using blocking and on a regular basis hustling about as its substitute, and Carter proves herself surprisingly adept at nailing all the mandatory actions with accuracy. As an illustration, her first huge quantity, “The Worst Pies in London,” has her singing about her failing enterprise whereas actively baking pies in her kitchen, smashing flies along with her curler, and gesturing that Sweeney ought to strive her drinks. She’s so on level with each bodily exclamation, capturing Lovett’s urge to have flights of fancy poking out from beneath her distress and exhibiting us who Lovett is simply in how she carries herself and owns her perpetual slough. In the end, it is by way of Carter’s efficiency that Sweeney Todd beneficial properties the emotional influence wanted to offer the viewers a cause to care, as Sweeney’s emo-posing and one-track-minded pursuit can solely be partaking for therefore lengthy. It is Lovett’s attachment to Sweeney and the way she evolves from there that provides the viewers one other layer of funding to carry onto, and with out her, the story would lose steam.
Helena Bonham Carter’s Efficiency Stands Out in Tim Burton’s Filmography
However what makes her efficiency stand out amid the ocean of different iconic performances in Tim Burton movies, like Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice or Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, is that Carter’s efficiency cannot fall again on the extra comedically twisted facet of Burton’s id that these different roles permit actors to bask in. In some ways, Sweeney Todd was considered one of Burton’s extra “respectable” movies, extra narratively managed and fewer prone to the flights of caprice or manic glee that characterize his finest movies. Subsequently, Helena Bonham Carter is tasked with exhibiting a higher diploma of unvarnished vulnerability, with no “enjoyable” security web to fall again on, mixed with the added problem of getting singing as a key a part of the efficiency. Mrs. Lovett, like most of the predominant characters, is usually a cavernously unsympathetic particular person, and it is the hidden burning hearth that Carter provides her that makes her not only a pleasure to look at, however arguably places extra duty on her plate than any actor in a Tim Burton movie. It resulted in not simply the very best work in considered one of Burton’s movies, however among the best performances in her illustrious profession.
Sweeney Todd is obtainable to look at on Prime Video within the U.S.
