Film review by Kevin Patterson
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS Rating: ***1/2 PG-13, 1990 Director: Tim Burton Screenplay: Caroline Thompson Story: Tim Burton & Caroline Thompson Starring Cast: Johnny Depp, Vincent Price, Winona Ryder
Tim Burton's EDWARD SCISSORHANDS is a cinematic fairy tale, a flight of fancy that sails on the wings of Burton's vivid imagination, and yet it still bears implications upon the real world. It's a film which is narrated in flashback to a little boy's question about where snow comes from. It's a film in which the protagonist, a boy named Edward (Johnny Depp), was invented by a strange scientist living in a castle (Vincent Price) and is eventually discovered still living there, many years after the scientist's death, by none other than the Avon lady. And yet it's also a film in which the fundamental conflicts and relationships are the same ones that we find right next door.
Burton's films have generally met with mixed reaction among both critics and the general public. Even his less-than-stellar efforts, however, are infused with a unique and remarkable visual style that sets him apart among modern filmmakers. EDWARD SCISSORHANDS is no exception, as Burton creates both an unnervingly bright and colorful suburbia that is somehow intimidating in its cheerfulness and a majestically constructed Gothic castle that has been Edward's home. Composer Danny Elfman supplies the film with a score that is appropriately both whimsical and sad, a perfect fit for this warm-hearted but ultimately tragic tale of an outsider trying to find his place among "normal" people.
The aesthetics of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS place it definitively within a fantasy universe. This is a good thing, because otherwise viewers might ask questions such as why no one aside from the Avon lady ever wanted to have a look inside the mysterious castle sitting at the end of Main Street, or what kind of scientist could create a an otherwise perfectly functional human being but not be able to get the hands right, or why on earth he gave Edward scissors as a replacement until he figured it out. In any case, the Avon lady decides to bring Edward out of his lonely castle and into her home. At first, he's a sensation: all the neighbors come to visit the family and see the strange boy who can perform tricks such as sculpting the bushes into fantastic sculptures. All too quickly, however, he is unwittingly dragged into a robbery by the Avon lady's daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) and then incurs the wrath of her jealous boyfriend when she starts to fall in love with Edward. Prejudices take over, and Edward comes to be seen not as the kind-hearted but easily confused individual that he is, but as a dangerous monster who must be driven out of their community.
It would be easy to see Edward as nothing more than a generic freak, a foil for an "it's okay to be different" message. I think that Burton and his screenwriter, Caroline Thompson, intend for Edward to serve as a metaphor for something a little more specific: the naive, socially inept artist. He is liked and admired when he's performing elaborate tricks for an audience, but few if any of them care about him as a person: he's just another novelty for them to enjoy. He is easily manipulated, and ends up being the fall guy for a crime which he barely understands simply because a beautiful young woman whom he trusts asked for his help. Worst of all, his attempts to fit in and help others often go wrong, provoking further anger and alienation, in his case because he has a tendency to literally cut things up by accident when he gets confused and uneasy.
There are quite a few clichés in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, though not all of them detract from the story. There is almost no development of the romance between Edward and Kim, but the film gets away with this due to its fairy tale format. Even Kim's mean-spirited boyfriend, a cardboard cut-out from the Book of Evil Teenage Movie Characters, manages not to irritate for the most part. Still, the film would have been fine without a duel to the death at high altitude. There are also a couple of the townspeople who are just a little too over the top, such as the Bible-thumping fundamentalist who is convinced that Edward is a demon and the seductive hair stylist who finds Edward attractive.
In the end, however, the film's good qualities are enough to carry it past any mistakes. Imaginative, clever, and strangely touching, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS stands as a high point of Burton's career.
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