Cut above

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2019)

Tim Burton here cleverly gives us a modern fairytale with a twist combining the dark with the light in this conflation of the classic Frankenstein and Pinocchio tales taking some barbed shots at mid-60's American suburbia along the way.
Framed within the timeless "Once Upon A Time" and "They lived (un)happily ever after" narrative is a beautifully realised story of the strange boy who came to stay, in this case Johnny Depp's title character, who up until now appears to have lived unnoticed by everyone with his scientist creator Vincent Price in their unobtrusive (!) castle abode just out of town. For some reason having given his creation sets of scissors (as opposed to say a hook or stump) for hands until the real things are ready, Price unfortunately for both expires just as he's about to replace them for Edward.
And so it is, that after a quiet day touting for doorstep business, persevering Avon lady Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) espies the castle and decides to try her luck there, where she encounters Edward and with her gormless husband Alan Arkin, promptly adopts the young Goth with blades for digits. It's not long however before Edward's growing local celebrity, especially once he displays his wonderful topiary skills, brings him all sorts of unwelcome attention, particularly from Kathy Baker's sex-starved neighbour (surely a prototype for Peg in the classic 90's sit-com "Married With Children") and the jealous lunkhead, beefcake boyfriend of the Boggs' pretty cheerleader-type daughter played by Wynona Ryder.
Unsurprisingly Burton duly brings the rain with a less than happy ending for the three youngsters in the love triangle but not before he's poked some fun at small-town Americana with its under-the-surface jealousies, bible-bashing proclivities, underlying prejudice and sexual repressiveness all exposed to view, with a nice satire of daytime TV thrown in too.
The film is a visual delight with Burton mixing heavy gloom Gothic with day-glo sunshine. Depp is excellent in another of the notable misfit roles he regularly seemed to play at this early stage of his career, Ryder is fine as the love interest, Wiest, Arkin and particularly Baker as the tolerated town trollop are very good in their grown-up parts and I particularly appreciated the aged Price's cameo as the for-once not so evil inventor.
Sort of like the kind of film Frank Capra might have directed after waking up with a nightmare after watching "The Wizard Of Oz" the night before, Burton has created an enduring holiday classic and an early highlight in his long career.