Edward Scissorhands (1990)
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Edward Scissorhands Movie Review
Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 fantasy romance film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. It’s such a wonderful, sweet movie.
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“Well, then why’d you do it?
Because you asked me to“
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This is basically a modern fairy tale and one of the most enchanting films to ever come from Tim Burton. The story is simple and it works in its simplicity. I really liked its touching ending, though it was a bit rushed as the movie is overly short in runtime.
But it’s engaging to watch and consistently charming along with being quirky in its humor and characters. Burton here created very relatable, modern gossipy suburbia filled with sexually frustrated, gossipy middle age women. It was a great idea to introduce Edward to this world in my opinion as we rarely see ignorance from the female side and here it was explored very well.
This is the first collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp as he would be using him many more times in the future. It worked and this is surely one of Depp’s first such roles (a weirdo and an outsider) and here this was original unlike today and he really did give a stupendous performance. The character himself isn’t the best developed, but I really liked how mysterious, endearing and charming he was.
Winona Ryder was much more memorable in ‘Beetlejuice’, but she’s also very good here as his girlfriend and the romance that develops between the two is very sweet. They are a highly likable couple. The film does succeed as a romance as it has a couple of very romantic scenes. As for the others, they are all not too memorable as they work better as a group, but Kathy Baker as sexually charged, goofy Joyce is a lot of fun and the scene where she tries to seduce Ed was the funniest part of the film.
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Edward Scissorhands does have pretty solid humor which is goofy and eccentric, accompanying its set of quirky characters so well. The movie is at times too uneventful and too leisurely in the first half, but I mostly liked that as it thus gave us better developed characters and a detailed, slice of life glimpse into this suburbia world. The score from Danny Elfman is very enchanting as is the darker imagery with memorable production design and gothic overtones.
Edward Scissorhands is one of Tim Burton’s best films thanks to a simple, yet sweet and enchanting modern fairy tale story, eccentric and likable characters, goofy humor and terrific score and production values. It works splendidly as a gothic fairy tale and an early showcase of the director’s weird, charming sensibilities.
