GREAT SELECTION: Edward Scissorhands (1990)

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CARO'S GREAT SELECTIONS Summary

Edward Scissorhands is a movie that is niche but solemnly heartbreaking and quirky simultaneously. The latter description is not very surprising because the director, Tim Burton, has a filmography that is full of quirky characters, colorful production design and brooding cinematography. However, because I'm not a big fan of his, the main reason is that his story gets lost in his own style and the central point is even though that most of his movies look great, the story does not take off and go anywhere. This movie is one of his own exceptions and it is one of his very best.

When this movie started, you think the premise regarding a man with hands looking like scissors was a weird concept to tackle. I mean, I would have loved to be in a boardroom hearing the pitch for Edward Scissorhands. My reaction would have been confounded and confused as to how the character will persuade us, the audience, to like him. But, the question was, where would this character's story go?

As Johnny Depp as Edward emerges from the shadows to meet Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest), we sympathize with him immediately because from the get-go, the Inventor (the great Vincent Price) was going to build Edward as a human-like person, like a story from Pinocchio, except this movie is a darker version of that tale. His virtually harmless and shy state provokes Peg to pry him out of the Gothic mansion and live with her and her family (Alan Arkin, Robert Oliveri and Winona Ryder).

She is attracted by his cutting abilities.

The most amusing sequence is when Edward showcases his haircutting and hedge-trimming abilities because most of the housewives including one in particular (Kathy Baker) are bored in the artificial state of house life even she tries to turn the plumber on. The one housewife sort of represents the fake personality that the neighborhood represents. She even gets an orgasm when Edwards cuts her hair real fast...weird, huh? It's as normal as it can get with every car backing up the driveway simultaneously heading off to work and the rest just clean or do anything they want for attention. Edward brings the unique flavor into the neighborhood.

Another great sequence but also one particular error in the story is the ice sculpture sequence in which Edward creates an ice sculpture and Kim (Ryder) dances beneath the ice particles when her family is putting Christmas decorations. I thought the slow motion version of the dance mixed with one of Danny Elfman's few great scores (I'm not a huge fan of his music) is magical and no wonder, I feel like Tim Burton should reclaim some of that magic back into his storytelling. But because of his thin storytelling abilities, the one character who seemed way over-the-top was Jim (Anthony Michael Hall), a bully who is Kim's boyfriend who takes advantage of Edward, even persuades him to come along for a robbery. I felt like Jim was a character that needed to be taken down a notch otherwise, the dark and corny climax would be a whole different and may be better.

A family dinner.

What impressed me more watching the movie again recently was Johnny Depp's sweet and quiet performance as he is a character full of sadness that needs some happiness in his life. He has very little dialogue but it is his eyes that takes over the performance as he transitions from one scene to another and transcends his feelings into professional concentration, drunkenness, confusion, sadness, happiness or scarcity. It is haunting and provoking. He has great interaction and chemistry with not just Winona Ryder but with Wiest and Arkin. Each of the cast in the family has a good moment with Depp's character.

***SPOILER ALERT!***

The ending is perfectly well done because it is as bittersweet and personal that Tim Burton can direct it. It is a throwback and sad ode to the happiest state of Kim's young adolescent life that she felt safe in Edward's arms even though he is not 100% human. Because of Jim's death in the climax, Kim reveals to the public that both and Edward dies. Everybody feels guilty about how they treated him. Plus, Kim could not be with him forever as she wants to be remembered the way she was in her youth. It is heartbreaking and can provoke a little tear from you because of its bittersweet revelation regarding her story to her grandchild and the brief image of ice sculptures of presumably Kim in her youth, the little fountain for the birds and the children playing as Edward is carving a brick chimney.

This was Tim Burton's and Johnny Depp's first collaboration of many that sparked an interest between themselves and the audience as they made a few great movies and some uninteresting movies. But, I have to say two movies this one and Sweeney Todd are two of their most bittersweet films between them because they both represent sadness into how they are transformed. Edward is an artificial man with no hands and can't age and Sweeney is a cold-hearted barber killer with the truth not revealed to him. Plus, I think those two movies are Tim Burton's two of his three best films respectively with Ed Wood in the lead but not by much. It is interesting and odd to know that most people like this movie a lot after about 25 years.