You Can't Help but Root for the Underdog

Rating: 10/10 (26 January 2014)

When Tim Burton makes a movie about Ed Wood, one assumes it would be some sort of an ostentatious lampoon, as in Mars Attacks for instance. Wrong. Ed Wood is either a stroke of luck for Tim Burton in regards to acquiring great material it's kismet for him to helm, or what I truly suspect, which is that it's a deeply personal and knowing labor of true, joyous passionate love and mature, careful craftsmanship.
Whether or not the movie is totally accurate as a biopic doesn't matter. It's about more than just an account of Ed Wood's life. It's about a passionate young storyteller breaks down doors, bares his soul, deals with merciless criticism, estranges relationships and fights the system only to prove himself an infamous hack and laughing stock. He was eccentric, relentless, even a little delusional maybe, but he could've been anyone.
This is the film I would argue proved Johnny Depp as an established, certified great actor. He captures all the can-do optimism that kept Ed Wood surviving, owing to a hilarious capacity for seeing the silver lining in the blackest cloud. The script imagines him as a model American dreamer, an idealistic underdog with little to be so hopeful about, since he was also a model American failure.
Something people forget is that Sarah Jessica Parker is a good actress. Something people take for granted, though, after the millennial works of Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola and Jim Jarmusch, is this early example of colorful departure casting by Bill Murray. But the stand-out is the landslide hallmark of Martin Landau's long career, totally disappearing into a darkly hilarious rendition of Bela Lugosi.
It's not just Landau's amazing performance that makes him stand out though. Really, at the core of the movie is Wood's friendship with Lugosi, who he genuinely loves, and who comes to depend on him. We see Lugosi alone and withdrawn in a tacky little house, settled in the hollow melancholy of his faded glory and addiction. His first scene is an exquisitely crafted gag showing him trying on a coffin for size. And Wood is able to relieve the despair, if just fleetingly, in a last-minute streak of roles which gave him amplified renown, as the star of some of the most legendary and respected horror classics ever made, and then of some of the most infamous and derided.