Film Forum

U.S./U.K., 2005 
Directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson
Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter
Approx. 77 min. 

“‘By Jove, man, looks like we’ve got ourselves a breather!’ The cadaver’s patronising chortle says it all: being alive is nothing to shout about in this, the second stop-motion feature from Tim Burton. In an Orpheus-type story split between the maudlin, near-monochrome land of the living and a razzle-dazzle-’em underworld, it’s clear that the dead have more fun. In a nineteenth-century middle-European town, Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp), timid and sensitive son of grotesque nouveaux riches—he’s in fish—is lined up to marry Victoria (Emily Watson), heiress of some equally ghastly down-at-heel aristos. It’s a reasonable match—both look as if they’d faint at the slam of a door—but matters are complicated by Victor’s inadvertent betrothal to Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), a marriage-fixated corpse and not a bad sort, once you get used to the sight of her ribs twinkling through her decomposing bodice and the maggot that lives in her eye.” – Time Out

Reviews

“Creating a cluttered, textured, and mysteriously beautiful world that we’re loathe to leave at the end.”
– Seattle Times