Edward Scissorhands is Tim Burton’s best movie and the first one starring Johnny Depp. Now it’s practically a requirement for a Tim Burton movie to have Johnny Depp in it. Tim Burton movies have a dreamlike quality about them. He likes to deal with the fantastic and shuns reality. The main character has fucking scissors for hands. That’s pretty fantastic.
Peg Boggs (Diane Wiest) is the friendly local Avon lady who decides that the gloomy, creepy mansion is a great place to make a sales pitch. Instead of making a sale, she finds a Goth kid with scissors for hands. She talks to him for a few minutes and decides to unofficially adopt him and takes him home to her family. Because that’s what you do when you find someone who has been living in isolation for years and has weapons for hands. You take them home to live with your young son and sexy teenaged daughter.
Edward learns about life from the Boggs family and starts to fall in love with Kim (Winona Ryder). But she has a douchebag boyfriend that makes life difficult. Edward uses his scissor hands to trim bushes and cut hair, and he becomes the talk of the neighborhood. Then shit happens and the neighbors start to distrust and fear the artificial man with fucking scissors for hands. And they drive him out of town and he goes back to live in isolation in the gloomy and creepy mansion.
Edward is a great character, but it’s his effect on the neighbors that drives the story. They embrace him at first and eventually shun him because of gossip and hearsay. The housewives are leeches and they want Edward’s blood. The suburban setting is like a dream that turns into a nightmare. During the day everything is perfect. All the houses are painted in pastel colors, the husbands all leave for work and come home at the same time, all the housewives spend their days gossiping, it’s all so ideal. Then Edward comes and shakes things up a bit, and by the end of the movie the neighborhood is dark and hostile.
This is a timeless movie. It’s a modern day fairy tale. And if you’re slacking if you haven’t seen it yet. Stop slacking.
Critically Rated at 16/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
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