The beginning of a wonderful partnership

Rating: 10/10 (6 December 2005)

Throughout the decades, there have been various successful regular collaborations between a director and an actor: Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro, Akira Kurosawa/Toshiro Mifune, Federico Fellini/Marcello Mastroianni, Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon, John Ford/John Wayne...Hell, the list could be endless. But the most interesting one in my opinion is the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp partnership, which has produced five weird, unusual, fascinating movies so far. It all began in 1990 with this beautiful opus...
Burton mixes Frankenstein and Beauty and the Beast in this peculiar Gothic love story between artificial guy Edward (Depp) and his host's daughter, Kim (Winona Ryder). This far, nothing wrong. Well, unless you consider the fact that Eddie's got giant scissors for hands, since his creator (Vincent Price, in his last role) passed away before finishing him. Therefore he has to live with his "digits", which actually come in handy as he starts charming the local ladies with his hairdressing/grass-cutting abilities. Unfortunately, trouble is on its way, as the boy can't tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong...
It's pretty clear whose side Burton's on: the "freak" is much more "human" than other people and Johnny Depp makes that possible thanks to one of his best performances ever (on my list, Edward ranks #3, straight after Willy Wonka and Jack Sparrow). Winona Ryder is excellent as well, her Kim being the only one who totally understands our troubled protagonist.
Batman may have made the director a celebrity, but it's this movie that showed the world exactly how talented and non-conventional he could be.