Excellent romantic drama

Rating: 8/10 (13 September 2009)

I love this movie, not so much because it's my favorite Tim Burton movie, but it's really the first one that he did which you can tell nobody else but Burton would have made. Previously he managed to find material that suited him well and that he could import some of his style to. But this story really feels like Burton all the way through, from the wonderful casting of Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp and Vincent Price to the visual scheme of the movie and the whole theme of the misunderstood outsider, only temporarily redeemed by art.
Edward Scissorhands (Depp) is the unfinished creation of a classic style "mad" doctor (Price). When the Avon Lady (Dianne Wiest) comes calling and finds the boy all alone, she takes him down to her house and tries to help him fit in with what passes for normal life in the suburbs. He falls for her preppy daughter (Ryder) and gets into a conflict with her jock boyfriend (Anthony Michael Hall). While temporarily becoming a celebrity due to his unique hairstyles and lawn decorations, Edward's freakish nature and his innocent and underdeveloped emotions eventually cause the neighborhood to turn against him en masse like the villagers in "Frankenstein." Under about 100 layers of makeup and prosthetics, Depp manages to turn in a very poignant performance as Edward mostly thanks to his ability to emote with his eyes like a silent actor. Ryder, who's been discarded by Hollywood in recent years, shows the kind of qualities that made her one of the few true teen stars of her time. The parents, played by Wiest and Alan Arkin, provide some of the film's most hilariously low-key moments of situational comedy. Arkin seems like the type of guy who doesn't really understand anything that's happening around him, but who has a graceful acceptance of the degree of chaos that his do-gooder wife brings to the family.
There's a brazen sort of coloratura in the extreme contrast between the pastel burbs and the perpetually dark and stormy castle that seems to exist right in the heart of town (without anyone taking much notice of it). In a sense it's the uneasy marriage of the comfortable Gothic beauty of "Batman" with the crazy funhouse colors of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." The film's success really depends on one's willingness to accept the romance between Ryder and Depp, which develops without much narrative or dramatic impetus. It can in a sense be seen as a deep flaw in the film, since it's hard to see Ryder's initial warming-up to Depp's character as anything other than pity. Accepted on its own terms however, the story is as tragic as anything Hollywood has turned out in the past few decades. Edward is this guy who absolutely cannot have any contact with human beings without accidentally scarring them. The premise of the movie would indeed fall apart if Burton and his writers had tried to force a happier conclusion.