Review: Sweeney Todd

I was warned before going that the movie version of Sweeney Todd was extremely gory. The gore was not so graphic in the stage version– just symbolic in the form of a giant coffin being reused as all the large furniture props and buckets of blood being poured into one another. So now I'm curious as to whether the symbolism was carried over to the movie or if it was all literal in its depiction of violence. The performers were all very impressive -- there's no separate pit for musicians; everyone is on stage all the time playing an instrument (and often switching between them) as well as a part. I wonder if when casting, the director is just looking to fill out the instrumentation and it doesn't matter who plays which, as long as you can play some something -- or if, for example, the woman playing the daughter has to be a talented bassist. If it comes back to central Iowa I would definitely recommend you see Sweeney Todd (assuming the darkness of the subject matter and the symbolic way it is portrayed is your cup of tea.)