Burton's unrefined, unmatched masterwork

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2013)

Tim Burton has an easy time creating sets and atmospheres that spring right from the bowels of his imagination, but he often has a more difficult time humanizing the eccentricities of his specific creations. With Edward Scissorhands that problem doesn't exist. Burton has successfully created his most personal story yet, combining true human emotion with characters that at first seem to be basic parodies of themselves. This kind of approach could've been fluffy and condescending, but Burton and screenwriter Caroline Thompson's maturity prevails over all.
The film tells the story of Edward (Johnny Depp), a young boy who lives in a mountaintop Gothic mansion with the man who invented him. However, because the inventor died before giving Edward a pair of hands, Edward has hands that are long, metal, and sharp, rendering him as forever incomplete or unfinished. Far below the mountaintop is pure-whitebread surburbia, where everything is plain and colorful. It's a miraculous look in the way of set-design and architecture. One day, a local Avon representative named Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) is traveling through the neighborhood and ventures up the mountaintop to solicit to whoever is living there. When she finds Edward, shy, pale, and lonesome, she takes him home to live with her husband and two children so that he can have the feeling of a real family.
Edward is clearly an outcast in this suburban wonderland, until he discovers that he has a talent for hedge-trimming and yardwork thanks to his scissor-hands. He makes something of a hobby going around the neighborhood and cutting everyone's hedges into a beautiful sculpture. But when Edward finally meets Peg's beautiful daughter Kim (Winona Ryder), he begins to have feelings far beyond any he has ever had before. It's unfortunate, however, that Kim is dating Jim (Anthony Michael Hall), a narcissistic and hopelessly arrogant man who belittles Edward despite his charm and kind-spirits.
Johnny Depp is likely the only person who could play Edward Scissorhands to the full extent, without channeling self-parody or unnecessary childishness. Depp is one of the only actors working today who chooses many "one of a kind" roles, meaning he can't go back to older films to see how another person played a character. And if even he could, like with Burton's later film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he still infuses so much creativity and personal-preference into the character that any shred of a carbon-copy is unrecognizable. Depp gives Edward enough leverage emotionally and personally to make him likable and a worthy protagonist.
Winona Ryder works extremely well in the picture as well, working far beyond any pretty-girl notion that one would suspect from someone like her. There is a masterful scene in the film where Edward is sculpting a giant statue out of ice, shredding it at rapid speed, causing light flaky-snow to fall down. It is the first time the suburban neighborhood has seen snow or anything like it and right below Edward is Kim, basking in the falling snow as majestically as a teen girl could. The scene is warm and presents one of the nicest films in any film Burton has done.
But ultimately, the themes of discovery, isolation, conformity, and ignorance take full presence in Edward Scissorhands. The character of Edward is a perfect one, indeed, and the setting for the story - a plastic suburban village - is perfect as well for a story like this to be told. Suburban areas are often conducted in a certain fashion, where everything is done a specific, orderly way and no questions are asked. There's little room for difference mainly because the elements of predictability and control are so heavily capitalized. The character of Edward shows an initial suburban area's reaction to a harmless, but different character, who proudly refuses conformity and a melting-pot lifestyle simply by getting by with what he has. While stories emphasizing originality and uniqueness aren't uncommon in movies, it's stunning to see a story like this portrayed in mainstream cinema so boldly, emotionally, and effectively. The case of conformism and being your own person is amplified so differently here just by the choice of character and supporting characters that it creates an astonishingly working blend of craft.
Edward Scissorhands is, in fact, Burton's masterwork, clearly personal, richly detailed, and aesthetically beautiful in many regards.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Weist, and Anthony Michael Hall. Directed by: Tim Burton.