A very, very close second to "Ed Wood" as my favourite Tim Burton film

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 2014)

Johnny Depp is simply wonderful as the title character, whose frightening appearance belies the fact that he is an extraordinarily gentle and sweet young man. It also has a very strong supporting cast. Outside of the first scene, Winona Ryder does not appear until 40 minutes into the film but nevertheless makes for a great leading lady. Kim has a great character arc, going from being terrified of Edward to adoring him. In spite of the fact that this happens over quite a brief period of time, it nevertheless seems very believable due to both the excellent writing and Ryder's performance. Anthony Michael Hall, cast against his previous nice, skinny, nerd type in the John Hughes films, makes for a great villain as Jim.
Dianne Wiest and Alan Arkin are excellent as Peg and Bill Boggs and I adored Vincent Prince's cameo as the Inventor, which sadly proved to be his final film appearance. The rest of the cast is very good as well, particularly Kathy Baker and Conchata Ferrell. Burton has a great eye for casting. I don't think that anyone in the film gives a bad performance. Actually, I think that is true of all of the five Burton films that I've watched recently except for "Planet of the Apes".
Part of the reason why I think that the film works so well is that Edward resembles the villain of one of the innumerable slasher films released during the 1980s. Burton and the screenwriter Caroline Thompson completely subvert the audience's expectations of Edward in that respect. Edward is such a compelling character because none of his problems are of his own making: they are all as a result of lies, misunderstandings and accidents. They result in him being completely misjudged by the Boggs' neighbours and thereby call attention to the isolation and discrimination often experienced by those who are different. This sense of isolation is also helped by the contrast between Edward's appearance and the Inventor's dark, murky castle on the one hand and the vibrant yellows, greens, reds, blues and pinks of the neighbourhood on the other hand.