Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Tim Burton’s

Corpse Bride

Only Tim Burton could find a way for someone to “accidentally” marry a corpse. Don’t worry, his latest film isn’t nearly as gruesome as it may seem – there’s no necrophilia involved. Instead, what starts out as an arranged marriage winds up as a jaunt to one swingin’ underworld in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.

In the middle of 19^th century England’s Victorian Era, penniless Maudeline and Finis Everglot (Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney), arrange for their daughter Victoria (Emily Watson) to be married to Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), the son of prominent fish mongers Nell and William Van Dort (Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse), in order to keep themselves out of the poorhouse.

During the wedding rehearsal, everyone’s uptight, bickering parents completely unnerve Victor and turn him into a bumbling mess. He can’t remember his vows, he knocks over the altar, and even sets his future mother-in-law’s dress on fire. Even the priest yells at Victor to have his vows memorized by tomorrow. So, how does this twitchy twig of a groom react? By practicing them deep in the woods in the dead of night, of course.

Once away from the collection of overbearing old farts, Victor regains his composure and is finally able to say his vows. But when he gets to the part where he places the ring on the finger of his wife-to-be (a tree branch sticking out of the ground), Victor soon discovers that the tree branch he just “married” is not really a tree at all – it’s Emily, the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter). Emily is so excited to finally be married that she wastes no time bringing her new husband down to the Land of the Dead to meet the new in-laws.

Naturally, since Corpse Bride is a Tim Burton film, the Land of the Dead is one heck of a happenin’ place. Downstairs, things really start swinging in the Ball and Socket Pub where Bonejangles (Danny Elfman), who leads the all skeleton house band called The Skeletones, gets the place rockin’ with the jazzy number “Remains of the Day.”

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Meanwhile, back upstairs in the dreary, drab, colorless Land of the Living, the desperate Everglots learn of Victor’s disappearance, and quickly arrange for Victoria to wed the sleazy Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant). Of course, all hell breaks loose (literally) when upstairs finally meets downstairs for one heck of a wedding.

Corpse Bride does have a new Danny Elfman score; unfortunately, it blends in a little too well with the monotone Land of the Living, leaving the upbeat “Remains of the Day” as the only memorable new song of the bunch. Unfortunately, without a catchy kid-friendly soundtrack, Bride is forced to rely on the humor of Victor’s situation with sight gags, subtle satire, and ancient pop culture references. Come on, will anyone over the age of 50 actually be able to recognize the worm living in Emily’s eye socket as Peter Lorre?

On a more personal note, Burton’s impressive attention to detail in the piano scenes was a tremendous help in convincing my favorite 6 year-old piano student that he needed to start using both hands. Because Burton filmed Elfman playing the piano and matched the characters’ fingers to the correct keys when they played in the movie, my stubborn little student was more willing to give it a shot. For some strange reason, watching a corpse play the piano with both hands is way more entertaining than watching me. Go figure.

The only element of Corpse Bride that screamed out to my feminist side is Tim Burton’s new boob fetish. Yes, I’m aware the story is set at the end of the Victorian Era when women wore corsets to help squeeze in their protruding tummies and pronounce their bosoms. But, what I want to know is where Tim Burton found corsets that would actually give women breasts gargantuan enough to overemphasize the anorexic thinness of their waists. I’ve seen plenty of pictures from the Victorian Era of women in corsets; and, none of them had waists as thin as their necks. So, Tim…the truth finally comes out….

Needless to say, Bride, like most of Burton’s films, is a somewhat creepy story that travels down a slightly different beaten path than most other Hollywood blockbusters. However, for those of you anticipating a follow up sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, don’t let Bride’s stop-motion animation fool you. These are two completely different stories generated that just happen to come from the same twisted mind of one creator.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Maybe it’s the morbid humor, maybe it’s the innocent naivety in the characters’ belief in true love, or maybe it’s the sweetened melancholy of their lament that makes Corpse Bride my favorite of these three kiddie flicks. God knows it isn’t the boob fetish.