Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Directed by Tim Burton

Film Review

When Johnny Depp first read the script for Edward Scissorhands, he 'cried like a newborn'.  As you watch the film, director Tim Burton's most personal and most inspired work to date, it is hard not to follow the actor's example.  Inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein story, Edward Scissorhands offers a beguiling mix of fable and fairytale dealing with universal themes of loneliness, identity and tolerance, in a way that is both witty and moving.  Burton's flair for visual storytelling is matched by some superb screenwriting and acting, making this an inventive and insightful study in the age-old conflict between self-realisation and social acceptance.  Edward Scissorhands makes the perfect companion piece to Burton's next film but one, Ed Wood (1994), which also features a misunderstood tragic outsider who fails to achieve approval and who, coincidentally, is also named Edward.

The concept for the film grew out of Burton's own unhappy childhood in Burbank, California.  The character Edward Scissorhands, a punk variation of the Frankenstein monster, might be Burton himself, an artist endlessly striving to realise his creative vision within the limiting constraints of mainstream cinema, but it could equally be any one of us.  Whilst Frankenstein is the film's most obvious reference, it happily pillages many other films and literary sources, from Beauty and the Beast to The Phantom of the Opera.  David Lynch's films The Elephant Man (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986) are frequently alluded to, both in the main character (a sensitive social outcast who struggles to gain acceptance), and in the cosy suburban setting, which turns out to be much weirder than we might first suspect.

Johnny Depp, already a teen idol thanks to his appearances in the popular American crime television series 21 Jump Street, was a perfect casting choice for the part of Edward Scissorhands - his most challenging role, and one in which he delivers one of his most engaging performances.  Incredible to think that Depp was not the frontrunner for the role - the executives at Twentieth Century-Fox were keen to hire Tom Cruise, but when he turned down the offer several other A-list actors were considered (Tom Hanks, William Hunt and Robert Downey, Jr.) before Tim Burton managed to convince his profit-conscious paymasters that Depp was by far the best man for the role.  Burton's instincts proved to be spot on.  Depp brings such vulnerability and gentleness to his portrayal that only a soulless lump of marble could fail to engage with his bewildered, scissor-handed innocent, who is more Pinocchio than Frankenstein's monster.  Edward's clumsy but well-meaning attempts to fit in with his adopted family are as humorous as they are poignant, and Depp does a remarkably fine job of revealing the fragile soul beneath the mechanical shell, conveying so much with hardly any dialogue.

Winona Ryder (Depp's real-life partner at the time) is equally enchanting as Edward's love interest - her scenes with Depp are the most lyrical and the most moving in the film, pure fairytale.  The magnificent Dianne Wiest comes pretty close to stealing the entire film as the intimidating Avon lady who thinks nothing of adopting a mechanical boy with razor-sharp metal shards for fingers (she has clearly never watched any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films).  The most distinguished name in the castlist is that of veteran horror star Vincent Price, who makes a pleasing cameo appearance as Edward's reclusive inventor.  A lifelong fan of Price, Tim Burton created the character especially for him and it turned out to be the actor's final film role.  How fitting that Vincent Price should bow out in style, in the setting where he appears to be most at home - that of a dark, echoing Gothic castle, the iconic bridgehead between science and the supernatural.

If you can see past its fairytale whimsy and unsettling fusion of comicbook fantasy with soap-style normality, it readily becomes apparent that Edward Scissorhands is a far more sophisticated and substantial film than is first evident.  It is a film that admits multiple interpretations and says so much about ourselves and how we relate to others.  Primarily, it seems to be a dark parable about how society deals with those who, for whatever reason, don't quite fit in.  Groups of human beings tend to prefer conformity to eccentricity; those who do not conform are considered dangerous, a threat to the harmony of the group.  Yet it is the eccentrics who provide the most value to society - these are the artists, the scientists, and other imaginative types on whom civilisation depends for progress.  Edward Scissorhands shows us how a close-knit community can be improved by the arrival of someone who is so obviously different from the norm, but it concludes (depressingly) with the community closing ranks and rejecting the colourful outsider.  Dinosaur-themed topiary may not be to everyone's taste, but it is hard to deny that a society which accepts Edward Scissorhands is a good deal healthier than one which shuns him and drives him back into his lonely Gothic mansion.

Film Synopsis

On a hill overlooking a typical American suburban town there is an old Gothic mansion, which is home to Edward, an artificial teenage boy who has scissors for hands and whose one talent is topiary.  Edward was created many years ago by a reclusive old scientist, who tragically died before he could complete his work by giving his creation a pair of human-like hands.  Desperately in search of a customer, Avon lady Peg Boggs visits the mansion one day and cannot resist taking it upon herself to adopt the solitary mechanical boy.  She takes him back to her house (creating much gossip among her neighbours) and he is soon a welcome addition to the family.  The reaction of Peg's daughter Kim to Edward is initially one of horror but she soon warms to him and an unlikely romance develops between the two of them.  Edward's skill at topiary and hairdressing makes him immediately popular with his neighbours, but he also makes a few enemies.  A religious zealot warns everyone that he is the Devil's own kind, and he soon gets on the wrong side of Kim's tearaway boyfriend Jim.  Within no time, Edward goes from being a much-liked local celebrity to a feared public nuisance.  No longer tolerated by his neighbours, he becomes a dangerous monster who must be driven away or destroyed...