Edward Scissorhands. Starring Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Alan Arkin and Vincent Price. Written by Caroline Thompson. Directed by Tim Burton.
"Edward Scissorhands" is disguised as an oddity, but is really hollywood esque. A "freak" thought of as a novelty, is at first everyone's hero until circumstances lead them to turn against him. All except his lady love who sticks by him through it all.
But then, whoever said the story had to be original, anyway. The fascination comes in the telling. the title credits alone suggest another wordly, eerie mood with the distorted metal figures suspended in the air. They portend an expressionistic nightmare.
Then the dour heaviness of the titles shifts to the giddy, impetuous Dianne Wiest as the persistent Avon lady Peg. Just watch her rehearsed gestures as she glides over her sales pitch - she's a scream. And nothing stops her from bringing her wares to the grotesque, solitary mansion on the hill, only to come face to face with a human abomination: Edward Scissorhands.
Edward is a Frankenstein's creation gone right. Put together by the inventor (Vincent Price), Edward has a heart of gold, and the countenance of a saint. But before the inventor managed to give him his hands, the inventor died, and Edward was left with pairs of scissors for hands.
Peg the Avon lady brings him home, and soon Edward becomes the object of the town's affections as he discovers his unique trimming talents. Housewives come to him in droves to get a new look, muts get new 'dos, bushes are transformed to art.
Edward falls for Peg's daughter Kim (Winona Ryder), and gets into trouble because of her. Then the love story begins.
And yet the narrative says nothig of the film. "Edward Scissorhands" creeps into the skin with its imaginary, at once grim and fantastic. In fact the narrative takes a turn for the cliche. But nothing compares to the utter tragedy of Johnny Depp's face as Edward as he watches Kim with her boyfriend, or as he wonderously gazes at the sights around him. Johnny Depp is perfectly cast, desperately right. He wraps the story around himself with poignant urgency. He cuts, snips and splits with the flamboyant look of an artiste which then crumbles into anguished passion with barely a quiver of an eyebrow, a droop in the eye. He is sublimely Edward Scissorhands, and all the intense innocence that sadly spills out of him.
Strangely enough, the special effects don't come out special, but are beautifully and unobtrusively blended into the film. the vision of shavings showering out of Edward Scissorhands as he craves a block of ice is cleansing, and relieves the dark tone of the scene. The mansion gardens are both gruesome and compelling, yet a comic feel is so quickly achieved with a long shot of redundant landscape of the suburbs. Then there are the scissorhands, never looked at too closely, but terrifyingly monstrous and matter - of - factly functional.
The story itself could do with more kick, but Johnny Depp brings it up to unexpected heights.
