If you didn't laugh about it you'd cry - so Burton wisely takes the route of weirdly dark comedy

Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2004)

Ed Wood is a frustrated actor and director who's small theatre productions barely can get a good word said about them. When a cheap little production company advertises a project about sex change, Wood jumps at the chance and uses his personal fetish for women's clothing as the hook to get the job. Despite his final project being laughed out of the major studios, Wood now has the taste for it and starts to try and get funding to make his own films - aided by the ailing star Bela Lugosi who is desperate for work to help fund his habits. With a collection of freaks and oddballs, Wood made what are now considered to be some of the worst films ever made.
Some things in life are depressing and it is often the case that we try to look on the bright side and make jokes about the situation as an attempt to deal with it. I'm from Northern Ireland and my humour is quite dark and gallows style simply because that is the kind of comedy I grew up with was draw from the background of murder and violence - gallows humour is an appropriate term. This film may not be based on gallows humour but it is such a potentially depressing story that the only way to do it and make it enjoyable is to tell it with humour. Burton treats his subject with a great deal of affection and thus makes this film a funny tale of a dreamer who we know will never see his dreams fulfilled in the way he would like. The story is funny but not in the cruel mocking way that it could have been but in a fanciful way that is amusing and all the better for being based on truth. This strand continues all the way through the film and helps us to like Wood even if it is impossible to defend his films - the ending is perfectly upbeat considering that Wood then ended his life an alcoholic making cheap nude pictures. The characters are exaggerated but still quite true to the real life people they represent (I take this from comments made in documentaries).
As director, Burton is excellent. He gives the whole film an otherworldly feel that is very fitting for a tale that involves characters that are very weird indeed. The affectionate approach that Burton has for Wood really helps - I wonder does he relate to the guy just trying to make the films that appeal to him or what it is that makes him feel this way towards him? Either way the end result is very good and it stands out as a film that is pretty much without flaw. I questioned the film's inclusion in the imdb top 250 but then I thought well, what is wrong with it? I had to admit that almost nothing is wrong - the only thing would be that the story may not be to everyone's tastes and not everyone will buy into Burton's affectionate look at Wood.
The cast is led by a magnificent performance by Depp who I have long maintained is one of the finest actors (or at least bravest) of my generation. Here he continues Burton's affectionate approach by portraying Wood as a man filled with hope and dreams - even doing a good job of turning cross dressing into an amusing quirk. The cast is truly all star but they all do a great job playing their characters. Landau's Oscar may have had a touch of sentimentality about it but it was still deserved - he plays Lugosi really well and manages the difficulties of his drug addiction really well to make him both amusing but deeply sympathetic. The support cast includes good turns from Parker, Arquette (quite interchangeable really!), Jones, Murray, Starr, D'Onofrio and Spradlin. All the cast do well but it is those that play Wood's wooden cast members that do the best job - managing to do both natural performances outside of Wood's movie but also doing justice to just how bad their characters really were!
Overall this is a great movie but the tale of a rubbish movie director who enjoys cross-dressing and hangs out with a group of weirdoes is likely not to be to everyone's taste. Regardless of this, if it interests you then you should be pleased with a slick movie that takes an amusing and affectionate look at what is a fairly depressing story.