Edward Scissorhands
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Tim Burton |
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| Distributor | 20th Century Fox |
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| Edward Scissorhands achieves the nearly impossible feat of capturing the delicate flavor of a fable or fairy tale in a live-action movie. The story follows a young man named Edward (Johnny Depp), who was created by an inventor (Vincent Price, in one of his last roles) who died before he could give the poor creature a pair of human hands. Edward lives alone in a ruined Gothic castle that just happens to be perched above a pastel-colored suburb inhabited by breadwinning husbands and frustrated housewives straight out of the 1950s. One day, Peg (Dianne… | |
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
Edward Scissorhands achieves the nearly impossible feat of capturing the delicate flavor of a fable or fairy tale in a live-action movie. The story follows a young man named Edward (Johnny Depp), who was created by an inventor (Vincent Price, in one of his last roles) who died before he could give the poor creature a pair of human hands. Edward lives alone in a ruined Gothic castle that just happens to be perched above a pastel-colored suburb inhabited by breadwinning husbands and frustrated housewives straight out of the 1950s. One day, Peg (Dianne Wiest), the local Avon lady, comes calling. Finding Edward alone, she kindly invites him to come home with her, where she hopes to help him with his pasty complexion and those nasty nicks he’s given himself with his razor-sharp fingers. Soon Edward’s skill with topiary sculpture and hair design make him popular in the neighborhood—but the mood turns just as swiftly against the outsider when he starts to feel his own desires, particularly for Peg’s daughter Kim (Winona Ryder). Most of director Tim Burton’s movies (such as Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman) are visual spectacles with elements of fantasy, but Edward Scissorhands is more tender and personal than the others. Edward’s wild black hair is much like Burton’s, suggesting that the character represents the director’s own feelings of estrangement and co-option. Johnny Depp, making his first successful leap from TV to film, captures Edward’s childlike vulnerability even while his physical posture evokes horror icons like the vampire in Nosferatu and the sleepwalker in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Classic horror films, at their heart, feel a deep sympathy for the monsters they portray; simply and affectingly, Edward Scissorhands lays that heart bare. —Bret Fetzer
Barnes and Noble
A contemporary fairy tale from director Tim Burton, Edward Scissorhands tells the unusual story of a man-made youth with scissor blades for fingers (Johnny Depp), who lives alone in the abandoned mansion of his dead creator (Vincent Price in a fantastic cameo). Soon poor Edward is discovered, and then adopted, by a kindly Avon lady (Dianne Wiest). In the first of his starring roles for Burton, Depp makes an arresting lead with his black latex jumpsuit, pasty white skin, and Medusa-like hair. But it is through an unusual warmth and tenderness that Depp’s performance truly defines Edward. Weist and Alan Arkin are superb as the amiably clueless parents who welcome him into their home, and Winona Ryder, in a full turn from her brooding teen in Burton’s Beetlejuice, is radiant as their cheerleader daughter on whom Edward develops a hopeless crush. As engaging as the love story is Burton’s savage lampooning of suburbia, which he presents as innocuously bland-looking but seething with petty intrigues and thinly veiled intolerance. His sympathies clearly run to Edward, whose bittersweet experiences in the “real” world will both delight and haunt viewers of this charming cinematic fable. The tenth anniversary edition DVD cements Edward Scissorhands’s place in Burton’s oeuvre, featuring an entertaining and informative audio commentary from Burton and composer Danny Elfman. Ed Hulse
