The haunting fable Edward Scissorhands is immediately recognisable for director Tim Burton’s incredible and immaculate set designs, which move us effortlessly from a spooky but elegant neo-Gothic mansion on a hill to cookie cutter monochromatic pastels suburban houses in the valley. Composer Danny Elfman’s elegant and delightful score maintains the mood, providing the perfect aural accompaniment to Burton’s bittersweet and elegiac film.
Throughout the film, Burton gives his suburban social satire a tender core via a pair of sweet characterizations — middle-class maven and Avon-type representative Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) and her gentle, barbecue-loving hubby Bill (Alan Arkin). When Peg discovers Edward cowering alone in a imposing and deserted mansion, she and Bill try their darndest to understand the leather-clad, scar-riddled, scissor-handed Edward and to help the peculiar lad find his place in their superficial and repressed world. In an interesting contrast, the spooky Hallowe’en house, which hovers menacingly over this bland stretch of suburbia, boasts the only truly decent and loving relationship in the story, that of Edward and his inventor (Vincent Price). Hence, once his inventor dies, it is entirely logical in Burton’s upside-down world that Edward evolves into the most “human” character in the tale. Completing the paradoxical circle is the sad truth that while Edward feels things much more deeply than the suburbanites around him, due to his razor-sharp appendages, he is unable to actually touch anyone.
Ultimately, it is the breakout performance by indie fave Johnny Depp — itself a precursor to a decade of remarkably varied high quality performances — that elevates this film from good to near-great. Reminiscent of great silent film stars like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, Depp quietly conveys his character's state of bewilderment and longing with a remarkable repertoire of creative body movements and subtle but touching facial expressions. Diane Wiest and Vincent Price also offer memorable performances in their supporting roles; this trio of remarkable actors gives this film its ever-tender and breakable heart.
Not all the actors are as convincing. Anthony Michael Hall is tedious as the conniving Jim (why in the world would Kim be dating him, we must wonder), while the undeniably cute and waif-like Winona Ryder seems lost in the role of Kim – you can almost see the ‘vacancy’ sign flashing on her forehead.
Burton’s off-kilter world is joyfully created, and his determination to remain within the confines of a fable means that the film maintains a consistent tone. However, this also means that clichéd secondary characters like the evil Jim and the seductress Joyce (Kathy Baker) strut through the film without evolving beyond the paper thin characterizations the genre allows.
Despite these limitations, Edward Scissorhands is an engaging film, one which falls early in director Tim Burton’s career, helping to highlight a remarkable decade’s run of moody, quirky and goofy films. Works as varied as Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Batman, Beetlejuice, Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow offer all the proof we need that Tim Burton is one of the most under-appreciated directors of our time.
