Edward Scissorhands
Director: Tim Burton. Cast: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Alan Arkin, Anthony
Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, Caroline Aaron, O-Lan Jones, Robert Oliveri.
Screenplay: Caroline Thompson.
A charming, utterly original fable with a darkness that would be surprising in a relatively
mainstream release were it not the work of Tim Burton, the hobgoblin director behind
Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks!, and the first two Batman movies. The title
says it all, with Johnny Depp starring as an undead-looking but sweet tempered boy
created by Vincent Price, gamely riffing on his own spook-house image as a genially mad
inventor who lives as a recluse in a lonely castle overlooking sunny suburbia. The scissors
that comprise Edward's hands were the last vestiges of the mechanical framework over which
Price laid Edward's "human" material, but were left unamended when the old guy dies of a
heart attack right in front of Edward.
Thus the boy is left on his own in the castle's attic until—who else?—the Avon lady, Peg
Boggs (Dianne Wiest) comes calling and discovers his solitary lifestyle. Only briefly
deterred by Edward's skittishness and scarred face (evidence of what, in any normal person,
would constitute fluttering a hand or resting a cheek in a palm), Peg takes Edward back to
her cookie-cutter household, determined to install him not only as a "regular" and accepted
member of her family but as a proud and proudly-received addition to her rather insular
community of gossippers, snoops, and bizarre Tim Burton-style "neighbors."
Edward Scissorhands presents this outlandishly strange premise, but with a gentleness
worthy of Edward himself, Burton and screenwriter Caroline Thompson (who later directed the
remake of The Black Stallion) demonstrate how Edward is just an extreme metaphor for
the gangliness and isolation experienced by most adolescents. Kim, the daughter of the Boggs
family (played by Winona Ryder in an obviously false and unflattering blondish wig), is a
popular beauty-queen among her school set, but she isn't any happier than Edward is. Besides,
she doesn't even seem to have a special trait or reliably unique skill; at least her new
brother of sorts can cut hair, clip hedges, and provide excellent show-and-tell material for
her younger brother.
The romance, or sort of romance, that buds between Edward and Kim is easily the least
interesting component of this picture, which has much more going for it in the buoyant comic
performances of Depp, Wiest, and Alan Arkin as Mr. Boggs, as well as in the eye-poppingly
vivid colors and fanciful designs of Bo Welch's art direction. (Welch created similarly
memorable havens in 1996's The Birdcage and 1997's Men in
Black.) The last few chapters of Edward Scissorhands are paced and edited
rather abruptly, as though Edward himself had spliced the film in one of his nervous,
snip-snippy fits, but the sizable risks and tender heart of this improbable story carry it
through its rough patches. Who knows if Tim Burton corresponds more in his own mind to the
introverted, misunderstood, and crazily-coiffed Edward or to the inventive, pleasant,
off-center Inventor played by Price. If the latter is Burton's primary identification in the
film, he can at least rest assured that his film may be flawed but only in minor ways, and
that Edward Scissorhands should coax from all but the most unfeeling audiences
the very interest and affection that Edward himself is desperate to receive. Grade:B+
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Makeup: Ve Neill & Stan Winston
Golden Globe Nominations:
Best Actor (Musical/Comedy): Johnny Depp
Other Awards:
British Academy Awards (BAFTAs): Best Art Direction (Bo Welch)