SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET You may have been at this cannibal’s banquet before. But have you ever had the occasion to attend it on the intimate terms provided by the Tooting Arts Club?
The trailer skillfully obscures the central premise of the film, and we’ll pay you the same courtesy; it’s best experienced cold. Suffice it to say that Rooney Mara’s Una and Ben Mendelsohn’s Pete (or so he says) have a dark past, one that the trailer and film communicate through extensive flashback sequences intercut with one harrowing day at the mill where Pete works. They’re on a collision course with a forbidden secret they’ve both buried for years, one that radically changed both of their lives when discovered. There are heated arguments, dramatic knocking-offs of things from tables in one sweeping motion, a painfully awkward champagne toast, and wall-to-wall good acting.