A touching fantasy fairytale from Tim Burton.

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2010)

Edward Scissorhands starts as Avon representative Peggy Boggs (Dianne Wiest) drives up to the spooky old castle that sits on-top of a hill overlooking her average suburban town, hoping to sell some cosmetics Peggy discovers a young man named Edward (Johnny Depp) who has large shears for hands. Alone & unfamiliar with normal life Peggy insists that Edward come back home & live with her & her family. Having no contact with the outside world before Edward finds things hard & unusual at first, his scissorhands don't help him either. Edwards meets Peggy's teenage daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) & falls in lover with her but at first finds him a bit of a freak & Kim's boyfriend Jim (Anthony Michael Hall) takes a real dislike to Edward. Using Edward to break into his parents house Jim leaves Edward to take the blame when the police turn up, the whole neighbourhood turns against Edward who seeks comfort in his castle but people just won't leave him alone...
Produced & directed by Tim Burton this dark modern fairytale is so Burton in style & substance & remains one of his best films, it's a tender & heartfelt piece of fantasy filmmaking that might just make you smile & cry in equal measure. Edward Scissorhands feels like a deeply personal film from Burton & has all his usual trademarks, the main hero is an eccentric outcast of society & Edward Scissorhands feels like Burton's take on the Frankenstein story as he tries to show Edward as a tragic figure, a victim of circumstance & the script (which was apparently written at first as a musical) manages to impart great sympathy on Edward & his plight. Edward as a character has a unique, naive, lonely man with a child like innocence. Edward is a great creation, if you can accept his scissorhands & the fantasy behind him his journey through the film is heartwarming & touchingly told with some amazingly written moments even though he only says 169 words during the entire duration. From his introduction to normal society to his falling in love & the eventual turning against him as he naivety & innocence is used for sinister purposes. A charming fairytale with strong fantasy aspects that is heartwarming & got me quite emotional on a few occasions. There's a certain deadpan satirical humour to it as well that plays brilliantly against the fantasy fairytale story. At an hour & forty minutes the time flew by for me & watching Edward come full circle in the film is a joy to witness.
Like most Burton films there's a dark Gothic style to Edward Scissorhands along with it's colourful suburban town setting & again the contrast works perfectly. There are many great moments in Edward Scissorhands, the moment when Edward sits on the curb unhappy & then cuts that dogs fringe is cute, the nice image of Winona Ryder dancing in flakes of snow as Edward craves a huge ice sculpture or the funny dinnertime scenes where Edward is used to carve the roast! The production values are top notch & Edward Scissorhands looks great throughout, from the brightly painted suburban houses to the dark Gothic castle a lot of time was obviously spent on the look of this.
With a supposed budget of about $20,000,000 you can see where the money went, apparently filmed in Florida. Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey & Robert Downey Jr. were all considered for the role of Edward Scissorhands but Johnny Depp is great in the part anyway. Vincent Price makes his last screen appearance in a nice little cameo role.
Edward Scissorhands is a touching fairytale that I enjoyed a lot, you really have to accept the character's & the events but if you can than this is a great film.