Mrs. Lovett (Spoilers)
Should have told Sweeney Todd the whole truth about his wife. She wanted him for himself. Selfish woman.
shareYes. Neither of them are particularly nice people.
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MovieChat Forums > Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) Discussion > Mrs. Lovett (Spoilers)
Sure, she wanted him for herself, but she also might have been trying to spare his feelings in a twisted sort of way. The wife he knew was gone and dead. The woman she became was completely mentally unstable, sold her body, etc etc. In a twisted sort of way, I think Mrs Lovett wanted him to remember his wife the way she had been...not the way she had become. And maybe in an even more twisted sort of way, Lovett was doing it for Lucy. Would you have wanted to be married to the man Benjamin became??? I do not think his wife would have wanted to know him. If she even remembered her life from before, she would remember a sweet and doting husband. She shouldn't be forced to have those memories perverted with the man he had become...a man willing to kill tons of innocent people for just existing. Her husband was dead. Sweeney Todd was not the man she married and she would have wanted nothing to do with a serial killer.
shareThat doesn't really make sense, because she tells him that Lucy has poisoned herself before he says anything about himself, before he tells her that he is dedicated to vengeance, and certainly well before he decides to become a serial killer.
Her motivations are for Todd and for her own selfish delusions of a happy life with him.
I always thought that it was fairly evident that Sweeney Todd was a disturbed man from the get-go. I think Lovett realized upon seeing him that he was a very changed and likely a very dangerous man. And Lucy DID poison herself. It just didn't result in her death. And I still think that she was trying in her own twisted way to save Todd's feelings. The wife he knew was dead. And I do think that later on Lovett probably justified not telling Todd about Lucy as it being a kindness to Lucy. Lucy likely would not have wanted to know the man her husband had become. I am not saying that Lovett's actions were truly altruistic, but I do think her own twisted way, she thought she was doing them a kindness.
shareIn the end she says, "I lied 'cos I love you, I'd be twice the wife she was..." So yes, she thought it would be better for Sweeney not to know about Lucy because she thinks that she is the better match for him. It's a selfish delusion, but I'd agree that she actually does belive it. But I see absolutely no reason to believe that she cared at all about Lucy. Neither from the play or this movie adaptation.
shareI love HBC's delivery in the final scene though, when she quickly starts backtracking "never said that she died" before dropping it and declaring her love for him all in one breath. Love this movie!
shareAgreed, with everything that goes on throughout the course of the film, you would think she'd know that he would eventually catch on to her sneaky intentions and not exactly be forgiving about it.
shareNothing says lovin' like Lovett in the oven!
shareWhile I do agree that I Mrs. Lovett was selfish in not telling Sweeny that Lucy was still alive, I do not agree with the notion that she didn't tell him about Lucy's survival purely because she was in love with him. They had only just met during that conversation about what happened to Lucy and were complete strangers to each other. It was only later on that Mrs. Lovett fell in love with Sweeny, thus providing a different incentive for keeping Lucy's survival secret from him.
Welcome to my Nightmare- Freddy Krueger
I don't think that's true. He worked and possibly lived directly upstairs from him before he was banished. Logic points to her knowing both Barker and Lucy before his arrest, at least as a passing acquaintance. She refers to him in the song as being 'beautiful' and clearly has affection for him already, and she says that she tried to stop Lucy from poisoning herself but that she wouldn't listen. Now we might doubt that that's true, but she did know about, so she clearly had some contact with them.
share"I'm your friend, too, Mr. Todd... if you only knew, Mr. Todd"
"You've come home... always had a fondness for you, I did"
From the song "My Friends", which takes place very soon into the movie. She knew at least of him.
I have been curious if he would have still killed her if she told him before he killed his wife. I doubt he would pick her instead of his wife at the end but might still let her live.
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