"What a sweet movie!"  That was my unexpected reaction to Tim Burton's romantic-comedic animated fantasy Corpse Bride.  

From the previews and TV ads, I had expected funny, but I was genuinely surprised to discover that a movie that includes a talking maggot could be so touching. 

The story, set in the 19th Century, is about Victor van Dort (voice by Johnny Depp), a young man who finds himself accidentally married to a corpse (voice by Helena Bonham Carter).   How on-and-under earth could such a thing happen? 

Well, it's like this.  Victor, the son of a rich fish-monger, has had a marriage arranged for him to the daughter of poor aristocrats.  He's never even met Victoria (voice by Emily Watson), and is extremely nervous. But once he finally meets her, she seems like a very nice girl.

Her parents are awful.  But so are his.  The wedding rehearsal is a fiasco.  Nervous Victor simply cannot get his vows right.  So he goes out into the woods to practice.  Finally he gets the wedding vows recited correctly, and he triumphantly puts the wedding ring on a twig sticking out of the ground. 

But that's no twig.  It's a finger. 

Clawing up out of the ground comes a surprisingly attractive moldering corpse, who tells him, "I do!"

This is Emily, the titular Corpse Bride.  Emily is cursed.  Murdered for her jewelry as she was about to elope with her lover, she has been waiting for true love and a husband.  And here's Victor, and as far as Emily is concerned, they just got married.

But Victor runs from Emily in horror.   (It's that moldering business - puts a fellow off.)  Unfortunately for him, he runs right into a tree and knocks himself out.  And winds up to find himself underground, where the skeletons sing and dance. 

And folks, the afterlife is a jumping joint!  Up to now, the film has been very stodgy, very gray and gloomy, but now we've got bright colors, we've got dancing, we've got jazz!

Victor still wants to escape.  He just doesn't fit in, what with still being alive and all.  He manages to escape to 'upstairs' long enough to reach Victoria and tell her what is happening before being pulled back to the underworld by Emily. 

Shy little Victoria shows some real spunk here, trying to get help to Victor, climbing out her bedroom window after her parents lock their 'raving' daughter in, but the priest she goes to for help only brings her back home.  And her parents, convinced that Victor has stood up their daughter, arrange a hasty marriage for her to the loathsome Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant).

You have to give the filmmakers credit.  They don't take the easy path of making one of the brides unlikable.  You find yourself rooting for both of Victor's brides, the quick and the dead.  

The solution to this supernatural triangle is a satisfying one, but if you find yourself sniffling a bit at the end... well, you won't be the only one. 

*sneeef!*

This one's a keeper.



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